Abstract
The oxidation of metal microparticles (MPs) in a polymer film yields a mesoporous highly-deformable composite polymer for enhancing performance and creating a gapless structure of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). This is a one-step scalable synthesis for developing large-scale, cost-effective, and light-weight mesoporous polymer composites. We demonstrate mesoporous aluminum oxide (Al2O3) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites with a nano-flake structure on the surface of Al2O3 MPs in pores. The porosity of mesoporous Al2O3-PDMS films reaches 71.35% as the concentration of Al MPs increases to 15%. As a result, the film capacitance is enhanced 1.8 times, and TENG output performance is 6.67-times greater at 33.3 kPa and 4 Hz. The pressure sensitivity of 6.71 V/kPa and 0.18 μA/kPa is determined under the pressure range of 5.5–33.3 kPa. Based on these structures, we apply mesoporous Al2O3-PDMS film to a gapless TENG structure and obtain a linear pressure sensitivity of 1.00 V/kPa and 0.02 μA/kPa, respectively. Finally, we demonstrate self-powered safety cushion sensors for monitoring human sitting position by using gapless TENGs, which are developed with a large-scale and highly-deformable mesoporous Al2O3-PDMS film with dimensions of 6 × 5 pixels (33 × 27 cm2).
Highlights
Mechanical energy is the most common energy in our surroundings, and it can be converted into electricity anytime and anywhere
With a contact-separation structure, the surface charge density of the tribo-material is the key to achieving a high Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) output performance
To increase the surface charge, many fabrications and systems have been introduced in previous studies such as micro-patterned arrays, porous structures, multilayer alignment, ion injections, ground systems, mixing of high dielectric constant materials, and charging pumps [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
Summary
Mechanical energy is the most common energy in our surroundings, and it can be converted into electricity anytime and anywhere. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), which are power-generating devices introduced in 2012, have been proven as cost effective, simple, able to cover large areas, durable, and efficient for energy harvesting [1,2,3] Due to their simple mechanism, which utilizes repeating cycles of contact and separation between two materials, TENGs have demonstrated promising capability in scavenging energy and as variable sensors of mechanical energy (vibration, rotating, etc.), ocean waves, fluids, and human activities. The fabrication of porous structures has generally consisted of two steps, suspensions and removal, which include techniques such as solvent casting/particle leaching and melting molds. They have more two steps in their fabrication methods and require more time to fabricate than TENG samples. We demonstrate a self-powered safety cushion sensor with optimized TENG output performance using a low-cost, simple synthesis and that is light-weight to cover a large area of 33 × 27 cm (6 × 5 pixels)
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