Portable Self-Charging Power System via Integration of a Flexible Paper-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Supercapacitor

Abstract

To meet the energy demand for flexible and miniaturized green electronics, it is highly desirable to develop a portable, cost-effective, lightweight, and sustainable power source through a facile and environment friendly approach. Herein, we report a portable, flexible, and low-cost selfcharging power system (SCPS) consisting of a paper-based triboelectric nanogenerator (P-TENG) with high output power density as the energy harvester and a paper-based supercapacitor (P-SC) with a great areal capacitance as the energy storage device. A cellulose paper/polypyrrole composite with a low sheet resistance of 7.8 Ω sq −1 replaced the conventional metal electrodes and positive friction material in the P-TENG, as well as the capacitive material in the P-SC. The portable SCPS is capable of driving various miniaturized electronics such as a temperature/humidity indicator, thus demonstrating its potential as a sustainable power source for flexible and miniaturized green electronics.

Bio‐Derived Natural Materials Based Triboelectric Devices for Self‐Powered Ubiquitous Wearable and Implantable Intelligent Devices

“…In order to realize the application potential of bio-derived natural materials based TENGs, more efforts are required to reveal, identify, and understand the scientific and technological questions at the hierarchical levels of materials, processes, devices, and applications, which will also directly impact the production rate, yield, performance uniformity, and batch-to-batch reproducibility for future practical production and application of bio-derived natural materials based TENGs. Furthermore, the holistic hybridization of bioderived natural materials based TENGs with next-generation flexible energy storage technologies [74,155,313,345] is expected to usher in exciting opportunities in self-powered human-integrated smart micro/nanosystems that can scavenge and store the stray, otherwise wasted environmental mechanical energies through sustainable pathways. The rapid and exciting advances realized in many emerging and well-established disciplines, e.g., data science, advanced manufacturing, material science, chemistry, electronics, biomedical engineering, etc.…”

“…Also, cellulose has been recently utilized for fabricating TENG devices in mechanical energy harvesting. [40,88,149,155] However, the weak polarization in natural cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) limits its capacity in surface charge generation. [40,88,156] Researches show that the abundant hydroxyl groups in cellulose molecules can be replaced by other functional groups through chemical substitution reaction, thus enabling facile approaches for engineering and improving the triboelectric properties of the CNFs.…”

“…Furthermore, cellulose has been used in multifunctional TENG devices. [37,86,88,149,155,157] For example, Shi et al reported a self-charging power wristband using cellulose paper. [155] Yang et al demonstrated a flexible and transparent triboelectric device based on CNF papers with excellent degradability and recoverability.…”

“…Moreover, flexible and wearable energy storage modules with compatible form factors are needed for developing functional self-powered systems. Shi et al [155] recently reported a cellulose paper-based self-charging power wristband (Figure 3h), which consists of a TENG energy collector and a supercapacitor. The charging efficiency was enhanced with increasing the input frequency, and the stored energy can be used to power the temperature/humidity indicator.…”

Self-charging power system for distributed energy: beyond the energy storage unit

“…57 Considering that the contact-electrification phenomenon is universal for almost all kinds of materials and the structure of the TENG is relatively simple, the TENG can be fabricated based on many different materials and different functionalities can be realized. Other than textiles, SCPSs were also reported based on papers, [62][63][64][65] plastics, 66 elastomeric polymers, [67][68][69] etc. Furthermore, multifunctional SCPSs have been widely reported as well, including transparent, 70,71 flexible and stretchable SCPSs.…”