Cylindrical-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator for low-speed wind energy harvesting

Abstract

In the state-of-the-art turbine-based technology, an effective wind energy harvesting is feasible only with wind speeds higher than 3 m/s. For convenient energy harvesting at lower wind speeds, a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with a hollow cylindrical top electrode made of aluminum foil has been proposed in this study, which is potent to scavenge the wind energy at very low speed of 1.5 m/s. The hollow and light-weight design of the cylindrical electrode (CE) enhances the levels of air flow-induced fluttering, which aids the CE-TENG to achieve an average power density of ∼39 mW/m2 at a low wind speed of 1.5 m/s, which is remarkable among its rivals in terms of relative performance and simplicity. In addition to driving the low-power external electronics with low-speed wind energy and harvesting of low-speed natural breeze energy, CE-TENG has been also demonstrated to scavenge energy from the air-flow generated from movement of nearby traffic. This work suggests that capabilities of TENGs can be extended with unique design strategies and optimizations to attain high efficiency for wind energy harvesting in low-speed regimes.