Understanding the Percolation Effect in Triboelectric Nanogenerator with Conductive Intermediate Layer.

Binbin Zhang,Shen Zhong,Guo Tian,Wen Li,Zhiming Lin,Tao Yang,Da Xiong,Weiqing Yang,Fengjun Chun

doi:10.34133/2021/7189376

Binbin Zhang, Shen Zhong + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.34133/2021/7189376

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Abstract

Introducing the conductive intermediate layer into a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been proved as an efficient way to enhance the surface charge density that is attributed to the enhancement of the dielectric permittivity. However, far too little attention has been paid to the companion percolation, another key element to affect the output. Here, the TENG with MXene-embedded polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) composite film is fabricated, and the dependence of the output capability on the MXene loading is investigated experimentally and theoretically. Specifically, the surface charge density mainly depends on the dielectric permittivity at lower MXene loadings, and in contrast, the percolation becomes the degrading factor with the further increase of the conductive loadings. At the balance between the dielectric and percolation properties, the surface charge density of the MXene-modified TENG obtained 350% enhancement compared to that with the pure PVDF. This work shed new light on understanding the dielectric and percolation effect in TENG, which renders a universal strategy for the high-performance triboelectronics.

Highlights

With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), and portable and wearable electronics, there is a great challenge to develop a distributed, sustainable, and mobile power source for driving such electronic devices in these areas [1,2,3,4]
Metal and carbon materials were embedded in the polymer acted as the intermediate layer to enhance the dielectric permittivity of the polymer film, as a result, the output of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was significantly improved [22,23,24,25]
At the balance point with the doping content of 10%, the open-circuit voltage, surface charge density, and shortcircuit current of the developed TENG employing the MXene/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film are increased by 320%, 350%, and 610%

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), and portable and wearable electronics, there is a great challenge to develop a distributed, sustainable, and mobile power source for driving such electronic devices in these areas [1,2,3,4]. Many efforts have been made to improve the surface charge density, such as material selection [12], surface charge injection [13], tribomaterial surface modification [14,15,16,17], intermediate layer integration [18], external-charge pumping [19], and self-charge excitation [20, 21] Among these methods, embedding conductive intermediate layer into TENG provides an efficient, cost-friendly, and scalable pathway to improve the surface charge density and output performance [18]. Accompanied by an increase of the dielectric permittivity, percolation causes a leakage current between the dielectric membrane and the back electrodes, which is unfavorable for the output of the device Such an effect plays a crucial role in the performance of the

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