Ordered mesoporous SiO2 nanoparticles as charge storage sites for enhanced triboelectric nanogenerators

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have demonstrated great prospects in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing. However, the surface triboelectric charges are very easy to dissipate in the air atmosphere, especially after the contact electrification stops. Here, we propose ordered mesoporous SiO2 (OMS) nanoparticles with a large specific surface area (SSA) as effective body charge storage sites inside polydimethylsiloxane (OMS-PDMS) to enhance the output performance of TENGs. With the addition of 1 wt% OMS nanoparticles, the transferred charges of the TENG showed a sharp enhancement, rising from 21 nC to 60 nC. The enhancement effect of OMS nanoparticles on the output increased linearly with SSA. In addition, the OMS-PDMS also demonstrated a superior charge retention ability, with 68 % of the voltage being retained over a long time after the contact separation motion stopped, while that of the pure PDMS quickly dropped to near zero. The instantaneous output power density of the TENG with OMS-PDMS reached 5.26 W/m2, which is a 25-fold enhancement. This work proposed OMS nanoparticles with a large SSA as effective charge storage sites to enhance the output performance of TENGs.