Sunday, November 18, 2012

Nanoscale Triboelectric-Effect-Enabled Energy Conversion for Sustainably Powering Portable Electronics


Sihong Wang Long Lin , and Zhong Lin Wang *
 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States
 Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Nano Lett., Article ASAP
DOI: 10.1021/nl303573d
Publication Date (Web): November 6, 2012
Copyright © 2012 American Chemical Society


Harvesting energy from our living environment is an effective approach for sustainable, maintenance-free, and green power source for wireless, portable, or implanted electronics. Mechanical energy scavenging based on triboelectric effect has been proven to be simple, cost-effective, and robust. However, its output is still insufficient for sustainably driving electronic devices/systems. Here, we demonstrated a rationally designed arch-shaped triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) by utilizing the contact electrification between a polymer thin film and a metal thin foil. The working mechanism of the TENG was studied by finite element simulation. The output voltage, current density, and energy volume density reached 230 V, 15.5 μA/cm2, and 128 mW/cm3, respectively, and an energy conversion efficiency as high as 10–39% has been demonstrated. The TENG was systematically studied and demonstrated as a sustainable power source that can not only drive instantaneous operation of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) but also charge a lithium ion battery as a regulated power module for powering a wireless sensor system and a commercial cell phone, which is the first demonstration of the nanogenerator for driving personal mobile electronics, opening the chapter of impacting general people’s life by nanogenerators.

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