Soft Tubular Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting

Abstract

A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), fabricated by soft materials with advantages of flexibility, stretchability, and water resistance, is a potential means for biomechanical energy harvesting. Herein, a soft tubular TENG (ST‐TENG) is proposed, which is composed of a flexible conductive sponge as the inner electrode and a soft silicone tube as the dielectric layer with the helix outer electrode. The ST‐TENG can be built in outsoles and harvest various biomechanical energy including pressing, bending, and twisting. The output performance of ST‐TENG was thoroughly investigated and the surface charge density can reach to 175.4 µC m−2. The ST‐TENG has stable and durable characteristics for 1.2 × 106 working cycles, 100 h soaking, and 5000 times bending. By walking or jogging with the ST‐TENG tubes, several portable electronics such as thermometer, digital watch, and calculator can be continuously powered. The soft energy harvester in this work has made a significant progress in self‐powered devices.

Natural and Eco-Friendly Materials for Triboelectric Energy Harvesting

“…Energy harvesting is a global area of research that includes the development of suitable methods of environmental energy collection, selection of materials, and customization of harvester designs, so that harvesters can operate over long periods of time with reduced intermittency and impact on environment, while ensuring low production and ecological costs. Many transduction mechanisms for energy harvesting have already been developed, and many designs of harvesting devices have been provided for a wide range of applications from small-to large-scale powering [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. A few years ago, the interest of researchers was attracted by the triboelectric effect, by which electricity is produced due to mechanical friction between two bodies in a motion [8,9].…”

Raindrop energy-powered autonomous wireless hyetometer based on liquid–solid contact electrification

“…Figure 2g shows the schematic circuit diagram of the EMM, which consists of a power management circuit (PMM), a storage capacitor, and a regulator. The PMM is composed of a capacitor C 1 = 2.2 μF, a serial silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) [43][44][45][46][47]…”

Advances in Smart Sensing and Medical Electronics by Self-Powered Sensors Based on Triboelectric Nanogenerators

“…In addition, it also has the advantages of broad material selectivity and high-charge density, which can solve the above problems effectively. Therefore, researchers have carried out extensive research on TENG in the medical field [66][67][68][69][70][71]. At present, there are three main applications of TENG in the field of smart medical treatment.…”