Free-standing graphene oxide/carboxymethyl cellulose paper-based triboelectric nanogenerator for self-powered motion sensor

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) are innovative energy-harnessing devices that serve as potential power sources for small portable electronics, operating on the principle of electrostatic induction. In this study, we demonstrate the fabrication of paper-like flexible graphene oxide/carboxymethyl cellulose (GO/CMC) composite film and their use as a tribo-positive layer in the TENG with fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) film as the tribo-negative layer. The GO/CMC TENG possesses high-energy harvesting performance compared to the bare CMC-based TENG that is due to the increase in surface charge of CMC due to the inclusion of GO sheets, as analyzed using Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). The GO/CMC TENG device demonstrates an output voltage of 97 V and a short-circuit current of 1.2 µA, achieving a peak power of 41.4 µW, notably higher compared to state-of-the-art TENG devices. As a proof-of-concept, we also demonstrated the practical applicability of the GO/CMC TENG in day-to-day life for monitoring the human body motions and to drive portable electric devices, which ensures their candidature towards next-generation self-powered systems.