Integrated Triboelectric Nanogenerators in the Era of the Internet of Things

Abdelsalam Ahmed; Islam Hassan; Maher F El-Kady; Ali Radhi; Chang Kyu Jeong; Ponnambalam Ravi Selvaganapathy; Jean Zu; Shenqiang Ren; Qing Wang; Richard B Kaner

doi:10.1002/advs.201802230

Integrated Triboelectric Nanogenerators in the Era of the Internet of Things

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2019 Sep 30;6(24):1802230. doi: 10.1002/advs.201802230. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Authors

Abdelsalam Ahmed^{1

2

3}, Islam Hassan², Maher F El-Kady^{4

5}, Ali Radhi¹, Chang Kyu Jeong⁶, Ponnambalam Ravi Selvaganapathy^{2

3}, Jean Zu⁷, Shenqiang Ren⁸, Qing Wang⁹, Richard B Kaner^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering University of Toronto Toronto ON M5S 3G8 Canada.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering McMaster University Hamilton ON L8S 4L8 Canada.
³ School of Biomedical Engineering McMaster University Hamilton ON L8S 4L8 Canada.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and California NanoSystems Institute University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering UCLA Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
⁶ Division of Advanced Materials Engineering Chonbuk National University Jeonju Jeonbuk 54896 Republic of Korea.
⁷ Schaefer School of Engineering and Science at Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken NJ 07030 USA.
⁸ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Research and Education in Energy Environment and Water (RENEW) Institute University at Buffalo The State University of New York Buffalo NY 14260 USA.
⁹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering The Pennsylvania State University University Park PA 16802 USA.

Abstract

Since their debut in 2012, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have attained high performance in terms of both energy density and instantaneous conversion, reaching up to 500 W m^-2 and 85%, respectively, synchronous with multiple energy sources and hybridized designs. Here, a comprehensive review of the design guidelines of TENGs, their performance, and their designs in the context of Internet of Things (IoT) applications is presented. The development stages of TENGs in large-scale self-powered systems and technological applications enabled by harvesting energy from water waves or wind energy sources are also reviewed. This self-powered capability is essential considering that IoT applications should be capable of operation anywhere and anytime, supported by a network of energy harvesting systems in arbitrary environments. In addition, this review paper investigates the development of self-charging power units (SCPUs), which can be realized by pairing TENGs with energy storage devices, such as batteries and capacitors. Consequently, different designs of power management circuits, supercapacitors, and batteries that can be integrated with TENG devices are also reviewed. Finally, the significant factors that need to be addressed when designing and optimizing TENG-based systems for energy harvesting and self-powered sensing applications are discussed.

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); blue energy; energy storage; power management; smart cities; triboelectric nanogenerators.

Publication types

Review