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Highly flexible and harsh temperature-tolerant single-electrode mode triboelectric nanogenerators via biocompatible ionic liquid electrolytes for wearable electronic applications

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Abstract

Conductive ionic liquid electrolytes have attracted increasing attention because of their remarkable energy harvesting and storage characteristics for utilization in triboelectric nanogenerators and energy storage devices, respectively. Especially, the ionic conductive liquid electrolyte-based energy harvesting device that can operate with high efficiency and stability in harsh temperature conditions is greatly needed for urgent rescue and wilderness exploration. Herein, the dual-function nature of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), water, and glycerol was employed as an electrolyte as well as an electrical conductor for single-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and supercapacitor applications. The biocompatible ionic liquid electrode-based single-electrode TENG (LSE-TENG) exhibits superior performance with an optimized CMC concentration of 3 wt%. Furthermore, by incorporating an additional ionic compound (NaCl) in the optimized CMC-based ionic liquid solutions, the performance of the LSE-TENG and the electrochemical properties are largely enhanced. With the anti-freezing and anti-dehydration properties of glycerol, the fabricated LSE-TENG delivers stable electrical output performance in the low temperature (−20 °C) to high temperature (70 °C) range. The power density of the 3 wt% NaCl-based LSE-TENG increases by 11 folds as compared to the CMC-based LSE-TENG. In addition, the LSE-TENG is integrated with a sensor for anti-theft applications. The present study demonstrates an innovative engineering technology for fabricating high-performance TENGs that can prove enormous interest in flexible and wearable applications.

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The data that supports the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (No. 2018R1A6A1A03025708).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Information Convergence Engineering, Institute for Wearable Convergence Electronics, Kyung Hee University, 1732 Deogyeong-daero, Giheung-gu, Yongin-Si, Gyeonggi-do, 17104, Republic of Korea

    Harishkumarreddy Patnam, Sontyana Adonijah Graham, Punnarao Manchi, Mandar Vasant Paranjape & Jae Su Yu

  2. Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Inha University, Incheon, 22122, Republic of Korea

    Yun Suk Huh

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  1. Harishkumarreddy Patnam
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Contributions

Harishkumarreddy Patnam: designed the work, material preparation, data collection, and wrote the manuscript; Sontyana Adonijah Graham, Punnarao Manchi, Mandar Vasant Paranjape: planned and performed the experiments and collected and analyzed the data; Yun Suk Huh: analyzed the data, review and editing; Jae Su Yu: proposed central idea, review and editing, and finalized this paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Patnam, H., Graham, S.A., Manchi, P. et al. Highly flexible and harsh temperature-tolerant single-electrode mode triboelectric nanogenerators via biocompatible ionic liquid electrolytes for wearable electronic applications. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 7, 56 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-024-00845-2

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