Transition metal pincer complex based self-healable, stretchable and transparent triboelecctric nanogenerator

Abstract

As a promising energy converter, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) demonstrates unparalleled advantages. However, its performance is extremely affected by wear, tear and damage of the functional materials during triboelectrification. In this work, by incorporating tridentate pincer ligand moieties into a linear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chain, the Zn-Pdca-PDMS elastomer for triboelectric layer was synthesized with excellent viscoelastic behaviors, super-stretchability (>5200%), self-healing ability and transparency. As a newly developed strategy, the strength of metal-ligand complex could be tuned efficiently by changing molar ratio of metal ions and ligands and three kinds of anions (CF3SO3−, BF4−, ClO4−) to adapt the desirable material performances. Subsequently, a stretchable, self-healable and transparent Zn-Pdca-PDMS based TENG (ZPP-TENG) was fabricated. With the molar ratio of Zn2+ to Pdca-PDMS ligand of 2:1, it exhibits the best output performance of 145 V, 6.7 nC cm−2 and 0.74 μA cm−2, respectively. The self-healable ZPP-TENG was employed as energy harvester to light up LEDs and charge a capacitor to driven electronic watch effectively. Even after several cutting-healing cycles, the output performance of the ZPP-TENG still maintain consistent. Finally, it was demonstrate to be employed a self-powered sensor for monitoring finger movement and pulse wave with excellent repeatability and stability.