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Highly stretchable, conductive, and wide-operating temperature ionogel based wearable triboelectric nanogenerator

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Abstract

The rapid development of wearable electronic products brings challenges to corresponding power supplies. In this work, a thermally stable and stretchable ionogel-based triboelectric nanogenerator (SI-TENG) for biomechanical energy collection is proposed. The ionic conductivity of the ionogel increased to 0.53 S·m−1 through optimal regulation of the amount of aminoterminated hyperbranched polyamide (NH2-HBP), which also has high strain of 812%, excellent stretch recovery, and wide operating temperature range of −80 to 250 °C. The SI-TENG with this ionogel as electrode and silicone rubber both as the triboelectric layer and encapsulation layer exhibits high temperature stability, stretchability, and washability. By adding appropriate amount of nano SiO2 to triboelectric layer, the output performance is further improved by 93%. Operating in single-electrode mode at 1.5 Hz, the outputs of a SI-TENG with an area of 3 cm × 3 cm are 247 V, 11.7 µA, 78 nC, and 3.2 W·m−2, respectively. It was used as a self-charging power supply to charge a 22 µF capacitor to 1.6 V in 167 s with the palm patting and then to power the electronic calculator. Furthermore, the SI-TENG can also be used as a self-powered motion sensor to detect the amplitude and frequency of finger bending, human swallowing, nodding, and shaking of the head motion changes through the analysis of the output voltage.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program from Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2021YFB3200300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62174115), and the Suzhou Science and Technology Development Planning Project: Key Industrial Technology Innovation (No. SYG202009). This work was also supported by the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science & Technology, the 111 Project and Joint International Research Laboratory of Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices.

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  1. Qianqian Zhu, Weiqiang Liao, and Cong Sun contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Qianqian Zhu, Cong Sun, Xuan Qin, Fangjia Zhang, Haifeng Ji, Zhen Wen & Xuhui Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Nonferrous Metals and Materials, Ministry of Education, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, 541004, China

    Weiqiang Liao & Yuqi Li

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  1. Qianqian Zhu
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  2. Weiqiang Liao
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  4. Xuan Qin
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  5. Fangjia Zhang
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Correspondence to Yuqi Li, Zhen Wen or Xuhui Sun.

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Zhu, Q., Liao, W., Sun, C. et al. Highly stretchable, conductive, and wide-operating temperature ionogel based wearable triboelectric nanogenerator. Nano Res. 16, 11638–11645 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5851-3

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