Harvesting Energy of Body Motion Through Single Electrode Based Self-Powered Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

A self-powered mechanical energy harvesting system consists of the storage system and the energy scavenging TENG. Triboelectric nanogenerator includes a system which integrates a self-powered sensor and the power generator, this triboelectric nanogenerator has the potential to be used in a modern wearable electronic TENG. It has been reported that triboelectric nanogenerator working under complicated deformation like bending, stretching and twisting brings the main problem. Here we have fabricated the shape adaptive Triboelectric nanogenerator which solves all the deformation issues and can harvest the mechanical energy through human body motion in any deformation, the fabricated TENG is a self-powered sensor which can sense the different human activities and can monitor the health issues, the TENG stores the energy directly to the capacitor for powering the wearable electronics. A human skin based triboelectric nanogenerator was designed from the silicon rubber and the copper acetate-II used as the electrode, which makes the TENG flexible self-powered sensor, it can be stretched up to 200%. The stretchable nature and the flexibility of the human skin based silicon rubber triboelectric nanogenerator makes it the promising flexible and shape-adaptive energy harvesting TENG. The fabricated TENG generated the open circuit voltage 70 V and the short circuit current 11 μA and delivered the power 55 μW at the load of 80 MΩ. 42 LEDs were powered directly from the TENG. The fabricated TENG has human skin tactile property which does not harm the human skin while using it multiple times. The layer of copper acetate is completely coated with silicone rubber. The fabricated TENG is flexible, biocompatible and cost effective.