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Triboelectric nanogenerators with a constant inherent capacitance design

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Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) utilize the phenomena of contact electrification and electrostatic induction to harvest mechanical energy from the environment. A good match between the motion frequency and the circuit characteristic frequency is critical for the effective power generation of a TENG. However, most TENGs have a time-dependent inherent capacitance (TIC-TENG), which hinders an optimal design for efficient energy conversion. Here, we propose a novel structure of a TENG with a constant inherent capacitance (CIC-TENG) and a mathematical model is established to provide analytical expressions of key output parameters of the device, which gives numerical simulation results that are in good agreement with the experimentally obtained results. Figures of merit and an optimization strategy are also given as guidelines for the optimization of material selection, geometry design, etc. Furthermore, a disk-formed CIC-TENG (DCIC-TENG) with polarity-switched triboelectric pairs is constructed to harvest unidirectional mechanical energy continuously, achieving an output power density of 55 mW/m2. The effects of the motion frequency, the number of electrodes and triboelectric pairs on the charge transfer efficiency of the DCIC-TENG are assessed and a preferred design strategy is given. Finally, the CIC-TENG demonstrates approximately two-fold advantages in power transfer efficiency over the TIC-TENG, and a DCIC-TENG-based self-powered anemometer was fabricated to measure wind speed in real time.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61971012) and High-performance Computing Platform of Peking University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunan Institute of Advanced Sensing and Information Technology, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, 411102, China

    Lanyue Gan, Xijun Jiang, Yuxuan Liu & Youfan Hu

  2. Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices, Center for Carbon-Based Electronics, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Fan Xia & Youfan Hu

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Panpan Zhang

  4. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Simiao Niu

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  1. Lanyue Gan
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  2. Fan Xia
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Correspondence to Youfan Hu.

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Gan, L., Xia, F., Zhang, P. et al. Triboelectric nanogenerators with a constant inherent capacitance design. Nano Res. 16, 4077–4084 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5054-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5054-3

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