An all-rubber-based woven nanogenerator with improved triboelectric effect for highly efficient energy harvesting

Abstract

The conventional 2D textile-based triboelectric nanogenerators (t-TENGs) integrated with clothes can harvest various types of biomechanical energy that occur in everyday life. However, the power outputs are still low due to the limited gap between the strips, resulting in insufficient triboelectric effect utilization. Hence, we report a fully flexible homogeneous integrated textile-based TENG (HTNG) fabricated with flat-panel vulcanizing process based on Ag-coated glass microspheres and PTFE powders in high-temperature silicone rubber matrix (Ag@rubber and PTFE@rubber). After triboelectric material selection and rational structural design, the HTNG has three relatively independent charge flow paths to realize hybrid triboelectric energy harvesting. By optimizing the internal contact-separation design of triboelectric layer, the maximum peak to peak open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, and power density of 728 V, 16.6 μA, and 1.77 W/m2 are obtained under 1 MΩ load, respectively. Moreover, the ability to respond to different frequencies, resistances, and charge capacity of HTNG are investigated experimentally. It proves an efficient access to harvest mechanical energy from environment and human motion.