Realizing the Capability of Negatively Charged Graphene Oxide in the Presence of Conducting Polyaniline for Performance Enhancement of Tribopositive Material of Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

AbstractIn recent years, tremendous efforts have been made to investigate tribomaterials for triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), but due to their low performance there is still need of tribomaterials with new mechanisms for performance enhancement. Therefore, in this study, the potential of conducting polyaniline and tribonegative graphene oxide is exploited for performance enhancement of tribopositive material through a new mechanism of disturbing the equilibrium state inside the tribopositive material under an impact force. Thus, a TENG device made up of polymer with 700 µL polyaniline and 4 mg mL−1 graphene oxide as tribopositive and polydimethylsiloxane as a tribonegative layer with a dimension of 1 × 2 cm2 is able to produce an open‐circuit voltage of 314.92 V and a current density of 37.81 mA m−2 with a peak power density of 10.43 W m−2, which can directly power ON more than 175 white light‐emitting diodes. Amine group of polyaniline and its pathway to mobilize electrons inside the tribopositive material due to electron accepting ability of graphene oxide upon physical contact under external force are the main contributing factors toward performance enhancement. This work introduces a low cost, easy fabrication process with a new method for performance enhancement of tribopositive material to acquire a high performance TENGs.