Abstract

The emerging novel power generation technology of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) is attracting increasing attention due to its unlimited prospects in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing applications. The most important factors that determine TENGs’ electrical and mechanical performance include the device structure, surface morphology and the type of triboelectric material employed, all of which have been investigated in the past to optimize and enhance the performance of TENG devices. Amongst them, bioinspired designs, which mimic structures, surface morphologies, material properties and sensing/power generation mechanisms from nature, have largely benefited in terms of enhanced performance of TENGs. In addition, a variety of biomimetic applications based on TENGs have been explored due to the simple structure, self-powered property and tunable output of TENGs. In this review article, we present a comprehensive review of various researches within the specific focus of bioinspired TENGs and TENG enabled biomimetic applications. The review begins with a summary of the various bioinspired TENGs developed in the past with a comparative analysis of the various device structures, surface morphologies and materials inspired from nature and the resultant improvement in the TENG performance. Various ubiquitous sensing principles and power generation mechanisms in use in nature and their analogous artificial TENG designs are corroborated. TENG-enabled biomimetic applications in artificial electronic skins and neuromorphic devices are discussed. The paper concludes by providing a perspective towards promising directions for future research in this burgeoning field of study. • A comprehensive and comparative review of biobioinspired designs and biomimetic applications of TENGs. • TENGs with structures, surfaces, materials and sensing/power generation mechanisms inspired from nature are summarized. • TENG enabled biomimetic applications for electronic skins and neuromorphic devices are summarized. • Opportunities and challenges for bioinspired designs and biomimetic applications of TENGs are discussed.

Highlights

  • Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), since their invention by Wang’s group in 2012 [1,2,3,4], have become an emerging research hotpot and gained widespread scientific attention, for their prospects in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing [5,6]

  • We present a comprehensive review of various researches within the specific focus of bioinspired triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) and TENG enabled biomimetic applications

  • The review begins with a summary of the various bioinspired TENGs developed in the past with a comparative analysis of the various device structures, surface morphologies and materials inspired from nature and the resultant improvement in the TENG performance

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Summary

Introduction

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), since their invention by Wang’s group in 2012 [1,2,3,4], have become an emerging research hotpot and gained widespread scientific attention, for their prospects in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing [5,6]. Over the last few years, enormous research efforts have been made towards developing and optimizing TENGs. The device structure, sur­ face morphology, triboelectric material and dielectric property are considered as the most important factors in determining TENGs’ per­ formance [28,29,30,31]. Among the various design and optimization efforts to enhance the electrical and mechanical performance of TENGs, bioinspired designs which mimic structures, surface morphologies, material properties and sensing/power generation principles from nature have proven to offer impressive performance enhancement for TENGs. Bioinspired designs of TENGs allow them to have better applicability in various applica­ tion scenarios which quintessential are often over­ looked. TENGs designed and optimized by learning from natural structures, surfaces/interfaces, ma­ terial properties, and unique sensing/energy harvesting mechanisms are in-depth introduced, respectively. Perspectives for bioinspired TENGs’ design and TENG-based biomimetic applications

Bioinspired designs of TENG
Bioinspired surface morphologies for TENG
Bioinspired materials for TENG
TENGs bioinspired from natural mechanisms and properties
Biomimetic applications of TENG
TENG enabled electronic skin
Findings
Summary and perspectives
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