A new class of flexible nanogenerators consisting of porous aerogel films driven by mechanoradicals

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Flexible nanogenerators (NGs) that are capable of harvesting ubiquitous mechanical energy from ambient environments have attracted significant attention during the past decade. Herein, a simple and scalable technique has been demonstrated to fabricate a new class of high-performance flexible compact triboelectric NGs using porous aerogel films. These porous aerogel film-based NGs can exhibit significant electric outputs without the use of traditional piezoelectric materials or traditional triboelectric assembly (i.e., the need of airgap). To explain the high electric outputs generated from the porous aerogel film-based generators, a mechanoradical-based mechanism was proposed and a series of systematic studies were carried out to substantiate this new mechanism. These systematic studies have demonstrated that high-performance flexible NGs can be made from porous mechanoradical-generating polymer films. The outstanding electric outputs from this new family of compact triboelectric NGs can be attributed to the reversible and transient mechanoradicals resulting from bond breaking of polymer chain, thus leading to a significant amount of transient dipole moments, as well as the permanent electric dipole moments possessed by the mechanoradical-induced polar groups. The elucidation of the potential mechanisms for this family of porous mechanoradical-generating polymers will lead to a new class of energy harvesting materials and high-performance, low-cost, and flexible energy generation devices.