High performance temperature difference triboelectric nanogenerator

Bolang Cheng; Qi Xu; Yaqin Ding; Suo Bai; Xiaofeng Jia; Yangdianchen Yu; Juan Wen; Yong Qin

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25043-2

High performance temperature difference triboelectric nanogenerator

Nat Commun. 2021 Aug 6;12(1):4782. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25043-2.

Authors

Bolang Cheng^#¹, Qi Xu^#¹, Yaqin Ding^#¹, Suo Bai¹, Xiaofeng Jia¹, Yangdianchen Yu^{1

2}, Juan Wen³, Yong Qin⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, School of Materials and Energy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
² Department of Material Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, School of Materials and Energy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. wenj@lzu.edu.cn.
⁴ Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, School of Materials and Energy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. qinyong@lzu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Usually, high temperature decreases the output performance of triboelectric nanogenerator because of the dissipation of triboelectric charges through the thermionic emission. Here, a temperature difference triboelectric nanogenerator is designed and fabricated to enhance the electrical output performance in high temperature environment. As the hotter friction layer's temperature of nanogenerator is 0 K to 145 K higher than the cooler part's temperature, the output voltage, current, surface charge density and output power are increased 2.7, 2.2, 3.0 and 2.9 times, respectively (from 315 V, 9.1 μA, 19.6 μC m^-2, 69 μW to 858 V, 20 μA, 58.8 μC m^-2, 206.7 μW). With the further increase of temperature difference from 145 K to 219 K, the surface charge density and output performance gradually decrease. At the optimal temperature difference (145 K), the largest output current density is 443 μA cm^-2, which is 26.6% larger than the reported record value (350 μA cm^-2).