Harvesting biomechanical energy is an important route for providing electricity to sustainably drive wearable electronics, which currently still use batteries and therefore need to be charged or replaced/disposed frequently. Here we report an approach that can continuously power wearable electronics only by human motion, realized through a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with optimized materials and structural design. Fabricated by elastomeric materials and a helix inner electrode sticking on a tube with the dielectric layer and outer electrode, the TENG has desirable features including flexibility, stretchability, isotropy, weavability, water-resistance and a high surface charge density of 250 μC m−2. With only the energy extracted from walking or jogging by the TENG that is built in outsoles, wearable electronics such as an electronic watch and fitness tracker can be immediately and continuously powered.

No abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) are a possible power source for wearable electronics, but the conventional electrode materials for TENG are metals such as Cu and Al that are easy to be oxidized or corroded in some harsh environments. In this paper, metal electrode material is replaced by an electrical conducting polymer, polypyrrole (PPy), for the first time. Moreover, by utilizing PPy with micro/nanostructured surface as the triboelectric layer, the charge density generated is significantly improved, more superior to that of TENG with metals as the triboelectric layer. As this polymer‐based TENG is further integrated with PPy‐based supercapacitors, an all‐plastic‐materials based self‐charging power system is built to provide sustainable power with excellent long cycling life. Since the environmental friendly materials are adopted and the facile electrochemical deposition technique is applied, the new self‐charging power system can be a practical and low cost power solution for many applications.

Multifunctional peptide-polymer hybrid materials have been applied as efficient and biocompatible quantum-dot coating materials. Significant pH responsiveness (e.g., an influence of the pH on the quantum yields of the peptide-polymer/QDs) was found and is attributed to conformational rearrangements of the peptide backbone.