Triboelectric nanogenerator based on Teflon/vitamin B1 powder for self-powered humidity sensing

Liangyi Zhang; Huan Li; Yiyuan Xie; Jing Guo; Zhiyuan Zhu

doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.123

Triboelectric nanogenerator based on Teflon/vitamin B1 powder for self-powered humidity sensing

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2020 Sep 11:11:1394-1401. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.11.123. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Liangyi Zhang^{1

2}, Huan Li³, Yiyuan Xie^{1

2}, Jing Guo^{1

2}, Zhiyuan Zhu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Chongqing Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Circuits and Intelligent Information Processing, College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Networks and Cloud Computing Security of Universities in Chongqing, College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
³ Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, China.

Abstract

Recently, there has been growing interest in triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) that can effectively convert various forms of mechanical energy input into electrical energy. In the present study, a novel Teflon/vitamin B1 powder based triboelectric nanogenerator (TVB-TENG) is proposed. Paper is utilized as a supporting platform for triboelectrification between a commercial Teflon tape and vitamin B1 powder. The measured open-circuit voltage was approximately 340 V. The TVB-TENG can be applied as a humidity sensor and exhibits a linear and reversible response to the relative humidity of the environment. Moreover, the change in relative humidity is also indicated by the change in luminosity of a set of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) integrated in the TVB-TENG system. The TVB-TENG proposed in this study illustrates a cost-effective method for portable power supply and sensing devices.

Keywords: humidity sensor; self-powered system; triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs); triboelectrification; vitamin B1.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LY20F040004), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. SWU019040), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61804132) and Zhoushan Municipal Government.