Development of Triboelectric Nanogenerators Using Novel 3D Printed Polymer Materials

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are becoming attractive devices for harvesting mechanical energy. 3D printing (3DP) is a newly reported technique for the development of this device. This technique is not fully explored for the fabrication of triboelectric materials and compatible printing processes. Herein, three main 3DP techniques including powder‐based multijet fusion, resin‐based polyjet fusion, and filament‐based fused deposition modeling are utilized to investigate new sets of 3DP triboelectric materials. Mechanical to electrical conversion efficiency of 3D printed and commercially available negative and positive triboelectric materials are compared and investigated. Polyamide ‐12 (PA12), Veroclear, acrylonitrile‐styrene‐acrylate (ASA), copper‐coated polylactic acid (Cu‐PLA), polycarbonate (PC), and polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) are fabricated using compatible 3D printing techniques. 3D‐printed PA12 is considered as a reference positive triboelectric layer. Meanwhile, 3D‐printed Veroclear, ASA, Cu‐PLA, PC, PETG, and commercial materials like Teflon sheets, PA6,6 conductive sheets, indium tin oxide‐coated polyethylene terephthalate, conductive‐nylon sheets, and PVDF membrane are selected as negative triboelectric materials. The maximum AC voltage of 80 V and maximum instantaneous current of 0.9 μA are produced by pairing 3DP‐PA12 and 3DP‐Veroclear under open circuit condition. This AC output is further converted to DC output using brdige rectifier circuitry to efficiently charge up the capacitor and glow series of 16 LEDs.