Robust integration of energy harvesting with daytime radiative cooling enables wearing thermal comfort self-powered electronic devices

Abstract

Wearable triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) exhibit high flexibility and electric output, and are highly desirable in wearable electronics, soft robotics, and healthcare. Despite significant progress in wearables, achieving versatile integration (e.g. elasticity and permeability) and ensuring thermal comfort when wearing TENGs remain challenging. We mitigate this challenge by fabricating an ultra-stretchable, waterproof, and air/moisture permeable nonwoven textile via the electrospinning of styrene–ethylene–butylene–styrene assisted by electrospraying poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene)/SiO2 to integrate passive radiative cooling technology into the TENG system. The co-deposited PVDF-HFP/SiO2 micro-nanoparticles exhibit excellent triboelectric and radiative cooling performances and can serve as binders and hydrophobic agents. Combining this with the stretchable liquid metal–superlyophilic electrode, our wearable TENG device offers an excellent triboelectric output (114.5 V, 445 mW/m2 under 25 N) that can be used to power small electronics and monitor human movements (e.g. finger tapping and walking). Moreover, the integrated TENG-based radiative cooling textile with high values of Rsolar (83%) and εLWIR (95%) offers cooling by ∼9.5 °C under sunlight as compared with cotton. This study contributes to the development of wearing thermal comfort textile-based TENGs for electricity generation, self-powered sensing, and zero-energy input cooling.