Abstract
Harvesting biomechanical energy is an important route for providing electricity to sustainably drive wearable electronics, which currently still use batteries and therefore need to be charged or replaced/disposed frequently. Here we report an approach that can continuously power wearable electronics only by human motion, realized through a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with optimized materials and structural design. Fabricated by elastomeric materials and a helix inner electrode sticking on a tube with the dielectric layer and outer electrode, the TENG has desirable features including flexibility, stretchability, isotropy, weavability, water-resistance and a high surface charge density of 250 μC m−2. With only the energy extracted from walking or jogging by the TENG that is built in outsoles, wearable electronics such as an electronic watch and fitness tracker can be immediately and continuously powered.
Highlights
Harvesting biomechanical energy is an important route for providing electricity to sustainably drive wearable electronics, which currently still use batteries and need to be charged or replaced/disposed frequently
Wearable electronics, such as electronic watch and fitness tracker, can be immediately and sustainably powered by the energy generated by the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) tubes during walking or jogging, without extra power management unit
In summary, a sustainable operation of wearable electronics is achieved by a material-and-structure optimized TENG, which produces sufficient energy by converting human motion into electricity
Summary
Harvesting biomechanical energy is an important route for providing electricity to sustainably drive wearable electronics, which currently still use batteries and need to be charged or replaced/disposed frequently. Three principles need to be considered: (1) The TENG in this work should have high output performance; (2) It should be easy for the TENG to harvest biomechanical energy from daily human motions; (3) The self-powered system should be wearable. This wearable power source is realized via a TENG with a rationally designed helix-belt contact structure, which is flexible, stretchable, weavable, light weight, low cost and water proofing. Mounted under shoes or weaved into cloth, the TENG-tubes convert human motion such as walking or jogging into electricity, which immediately and sustainably powers wearable electronics such as an electronic watch and a fitness tracker with the combination of a supercapacitor or battery to form a self-charging power system
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