Achieving Ultrahigh Output Energy Density of Triboelectric Nanogenerators in High‐Pressure Gas Environment

Abstract

Through years of development, the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been demonstrated as a burgeoning efficient energy harvester. Plenty of efforts have been devoted to further improving the electric output performance through material/surface optimization, ion implantation or the external electric circuit. However, all these methods cannot break through the fundamental limitation brought by the inevitable electrical breakdown effect, and thus the output energy density is restricted. Here, a method for enhancing the threshold output energy density of TENGs is proposed by suppressing the breakdown effects in the high-pressure gas environment. With that, the output energy density of the contact-separation mode TENG can be increased by over 25 times in 10 atm than that in the atmosphere, and that of the freestanding sliding TENG can also achieve over 5 times increase in 6 atm. This research demonstrates the excellent suppression effect of the electric breakdown brought by the high-pressure gas environment, which may provide a practical and effective technological route to promote the output performance of TENGs.

Achieving ultrahigh instantaneous power density of 10 MW/m2 by leveraging the opposite-charge-enhanced transistor-like triboelectric nanogenerator (OCT-TENG)

“…However, TENG suffers from two fundamental limitations: the low charge transfer 13 – 16 (~100 μC/m 2 ) and the high output impedance 13 , 17 (in the order of MΩ), which result in low output power. The charge output of the TENGs can be increased by enhancing tribo-material’s surface charge density 18 – 27 , but it often needs extra material modification processes 26 , 27 , external charge excitation modules 24 , 25 , or strict environmental conditions 21 , 28 . On the other hand, the impedance can be reduced by employing power management (PM) circuits 13 , 29 , 30 .…”

Smart Textile Triboelectric Nanogenerators: Prospective Strategies for Improving Electricity Output Performance

“…When the voltage exceeds the threshold breakdown voltage, or the electric field exceeds the threshold breakdown electric field, the electrons emitted from the cathode will be accelerated to high kinetic energy, which will continue to collide with the gas molecules and cause collision ionization. Then, during the collision, the secondary electrons will be formed, causing the chain reaction, which is called electron avalanche (Figure 12a) [159]. However, the increase of gas pressure can cause a shorter mean free path and thereby inhibit the gas breakdown.…”

A paradigm shift fully self-powered long-distance wireless sensing solution enabled by discharge-induced displacement current

“…These results confirmed the electrical model of the SWISE, which also provides a convenient method to tune the spectrum of the SWISE to achieve multipoint wireless sensing and transmission. The gas environment experiment of SWISE In addition, environmental factors as listed in table S1 were demonstrated to make a great impact on the discharge behavior (35)(36)(37), which may also affect the wireless signals. Here, the influence of the gas type was systematically studied, with the experiment platform shown in Fig.…”