Post-fabrication modifications of thermoplastic polymeric nanofiber membranes with electroactive polymers for triboelectric nanogenerators

Abstract

With the development of wearable electronics, the demand for sustainable power supply has propelled the growth of garment-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). New approaches which can improve the electrical output performance while ensuring the comfort of wearing from a device are ongoing. In this investigation, a high-performance contact-separation TENG has been constructed with two triboelectric layers using the same thermoplastic polymeric materials. The above thermoplastic polymeric materials which are raw materials of clothing are used as substrate after developing them into nanofibers via melt-blending extrusion method. Post-fabrication modifications are applied to nanofiber membranes to achieve tribo-electronegative and tribo-electropositive for increasing the performance in terms of electrical output from the obtained devices. Driven by periodic motions, the triboelectric pair containing PTFE/PVDF/EVOH composite nanofiber membranes (PPECNMs) fabricated via facile non-solvent induced phase inversion and PEI/EVOH composite nanofiber membranes (PEI-ECNMs) obtained through effective grafting reaction realizes a continuous contact and separation to achieve a remarkable power density of 2.45 W/m2. In addition, the possibility of the developed TENG to harvest frictional energy between garment triggered by the body motions is successfully proved by sewing the triboelectric pair on clothes because of the compatibility between thermoplastic polymeric materials and clothing. Consequently, this study not only provides a novel way for the modification of micro-nanostructural triboelectric layers, but also demonstrates the practicality of all-fiber devices towards applications in smart garment.