An Ultrarobust and High‐Performance Rotational Hydrodynamic Triboelectric Nanogenerator Enabled by Automatic Mode Switching and Charge Excitation

Abstract

The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is an emerging technology for ambient mechanical energy harvesting, which provides a possibility to realize wild environment monitoring by self‐powered sensing systems. However, TENGs are limited in some practical applications as a result of their low output performance (low charge density) and mechanical durability (material abrasion). Herein, an ultrarobust and high‐performance rotational TENG enabled by automatic mode switching (contact mode at low speed and noncontact at high speed) and charge excitation is proposed. It displays excellent stability, maintaining 94% electrical output after 72 000 cycles, much higher than that of the normal contact‐mode TENG (30%). Due to its high electrical stability and large electrical output, this TENG powers 944 green light‐emitting diodes to brightness in series. Furthermore, by harvesting water‐flow energy, various commercial capacitors can be charged quickly, and a self‐powered fire alarm and self‐powered temperature and humidity detection are realized. This work provides an ideal scheme for enhancing the mechanical durability, broadening the range of working frequency, and improving the electrical output of TENGs. In addition, the high‐performance hydrodynamic TENG demonstrated in this work will have great applications for Internet of Things in remote areas.

High Output Performance and Ultra-Durable DC Output for Triboelectric Nanogenerator Inspired by Primary Cell

“…These distributed sensors drive urgent demand and bring huge challenge to distributed and sustainable power supply [5][6][7][8]. Fortunately, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), as a new energy converter, provides a promising effective technique for scavenging low frequency mechanical energy, such as vibration energy [9][10][11], wind energy [12][13][14], water flow energy [15,16] and converting into electric energy. Besides, TENG shows great merits in large scale applications for IOTs, BD, and environmental monitoring, such as cost-effectiveness, abundant materials availability, simple structure design, and environmental friendliness [17][18][19][20][21].…”

Performance-Improved Highly Integrated Uniaxial Tristate Hybrid Nanogenerator for Sustainable Mechanical Energy Harvesting

“…As demonstrated in our previous works, 16 the wireless data transmission circuit has a regulated two-stage energy management system to efficiently collect and store the generated energy from the nanogenerator. The UTHNG was excited at 6 Hz, and the electric charges were stored in an input capacitor (C in ) of 1 μF (black curve of Figure 7d(ii)).…”

Aerodynamics‐Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Enhancing Multi‐Operating Robustness via Mode Automatic Switching

“…Compared with the previously reported modeswitching works, our device shows good stability and has a lower separation threshold (Figure 2g; Table S2, Supporting Information). [26,27,30,31] After the continuous operation of AB-TENG for 48 h, the optical microscope photographs of PVC surface under automatic switching mode, separation mode, and contact mode are shown in Figure 3f. It is observed that after continuous operation for a long time, the PVC surface is not worn under separation mode, and there are many impurities on the PVC surface under contact mode, and the material is seriously worn.…”

“…[22] It is especially suitable for collecting rotating mechanical energy. In reality, due to the uncertainty of environmental energy, TENG usually works at a higher speed when the collected energy increases (such as irregular airflow, [23][24][25][26][27] water flow, [28][29][30][31] etc. ), and the decline of electrical output performance caused by material wear caused by high speed is an unavoidable problem in practical use.…”