ZnO-Polystyrene Composite as Efficient Energy Harvest for Self-Powered Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

Energy harvest systems are a scientific key and an economic driver for global industries in the near future with applications in health care, environmental monitoring, and more. Among them, the solution-processed Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG) substrate has fascinated important attention in the past decades and increasingly becomes the most suitable and promising prototype for healthcare/environmental protection as no battery is needed to power the devices. In this paper, we proposed a solution-processed ZnO-NR & ZnO-Polystyrene (ZnO-PS) composite for the development of the TENG model for the future self-powered medical device applications. Morphology of nanostructure shown via FE-SEM images, an improvement of ZnO-PS composite NRs due to the diffusion of polystyrene in ZnO-NR at higher seeding temperature. Furthermore, samples were characterized and analyzed by Raman spectrum & UV-visible absorption, which verify the improvement of the morphology. The power density of the ZnO-PS composite (2.30 × 10−4 W m−2) was 71% higher than that of the TENG with ZnO Nanorods (1.65 × 10−4 W m−2) due to the surface improvement. Thus, we present a new perspective of the ZnO-PS composite TENGs model for developing a new technology which is vitally important in the future application for self-powered healthcare monitors.