Electrospun Polyimide Nanofiber-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Harvesting Energy at Elevated Temperatures

Abstract

The thermionic emission effect and the destruction of the polymer surface structure caused by elevated temperatures severely affect the electron transfer in triboelectric nanogenerator (TENGs); thus, previous studies on the performance of polymer-based TENGs at elevated temperatures have mainly focused on that below 200 °C. Polyimide (PI) with high thermal stability and excellent triboelectric negativity has been widely used in the TENG but lacks systematic investigation in high-temperature environments. Hence, we systematically evaluated the output performance of a polyimide nanofiber-based TENG (PINF-TENG) composed of an electrospun polyimide nanofiber (PINF) and copper foil at 25–250 °C. The PINF-TENG generated an open-circuit voltage of 60.83 V and a short-circuit current of 1.52 μA at 25 °C, and a peak power density of 17.36 mW/m2 was achieved on a 50 MΩ external load. The open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current decreased sharply with the increase of temperature, while the optimal load resistance increased, which has not been reported in previous studies of polymer-based TENGs. In addition, the PINF-TENG can still maintain 25.48% of the voltage and 23.03% of the current at 250 °C with regard to those at 25 °C, which can stably charge the capacitor and drive 20 commercial green light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Therefore, this PINF-TENG has great application prospects for harvesting energy and sensing motion in hot gas, space, and many other high-temperature environments.

A Critical Review on Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs) with Flame Retardant, Antibacterial, Self-Cleaning, or Water Repellent Properties

“…The TENG could retain 68% of its output after burning for 60 s. Again, electrospun polyimide mats have also been used as flame retardant TENGs. 112 The performance of such a device was found to decrease with an increase in temperature. It could retain around 25.48% of the voltage and 23% of the current output values even at 250 °C.…”

“…The power density of the wood based TENG could reach 24.2 mW/m 2 . The TENG could retain 68% of its output after burning for 60 s. Again, electrospun polyimide mats have also been used as flame retardant TENGs . The performance of such a device was found to decrease with an increase in temperature.…”

Advances of Strategies to Increase the Surface Charge Density of Triboelectric Nanogenerators: A Review

“…In addition, researchers have successfully incorporated polymers such as PVDF, [ 99 ] polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), [ 100 ] PI, [ 101 ] and nylon [ 102 ] into nanofibers by the electrostatic spinning process. Zheng et al [ 35 ] reported the fabrication of a vertical contact‐separation TENG by adopting an electrospun PVDF membrane and nylon nanowires (Figure 4c).…”

Recent Study Advances in Flexible Sensors Based on Polyimides

“…Other than the above progress (the comparison is shown in Table 2 ), the following works are also of great significance. The PI nanofibers prepared by Shi et al [ 22 ] using electrospinning technology and assembled in TENG can be used at an ultra-high temperature of 250 °C with exceptional output performance. By introducing dynamic disulfide bond exchange and flexible PDMS fragments into the PI main chain, Li et al [ 54 ] endow PI with a self-healing property, providing theoretical guidance for the production of self-healing TENG.…”

“…In addition to the commonly used PI films, PI foams, PI fibers, PI aerogels, and so on have also been prepared. Above all, porous PI aerogels and PI fibers are used as the tribo-contact layer of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) and can greatly improve the performance of TENG [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]. On account of the triboelectrification and energy harvesting (EH) benefits of TENG, it can be used for the testing of embedded applications, especially those involving self-powered sensors [ 23 ].…”