A Dual-Mode Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Efficiently Harvesting Droplet Energy

Di Liu; Peiyuan Yang; Yikui Gao; Nian Liu; Cuiying Ye; Linglin Zhou; Jiayue Zhang; Ziting Guo; Jie Wang; Zhong Lin Wang

doi:10.1002/smll.202400698

A Dual-Mode Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Efficiently Harvesting Droplet Energy

Small. 2024 Mar 6:e2400698. doi: 10.1002/smll.202400698. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Di Liu^{1

2}, Peiyuan Yang¹, Yikui Gao^{1

2}, Nian Liu¹, Cuiying Ye^{1

2}, Linglin Zhou^{1

2

3}, Jiayue Zhang¹, Ziting Guo^{1

2}, Jie Wang^{1

2

3}, Zhong Lin Wang^{1

2

3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400, P. R. China.
² College of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ Guangzhou Institute of Blue Energy, Knowledge City, Huangpu District, Guangzhou, 510555, P. R. China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 30332, USA.
⁵ Yonsei Frontier Lab, Yonsei University, Seoul, 03722, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 38446055
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202400698

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a promising solution to harvest the low-frequency, low-actuation-force, and high-entropy droplet energy. Conventional attempts mainly focus on maximizing electrostatic energy harvest on the liquid-solid surface, but enormous kinetic energy of droplet hitting the substrate is directly dissipated, limiting the output performance. Here, a dual-mode TENG (DM-TENG) is proposed to efficiently harvest both electrostatic energy at liquid-solid surface from a droplet TENG (D-TENG) and elastic potential energy of the vibrated cantilever from a contact-separation TENG (CS-TENG). Triggered by small droplets, the flexible cantilever beam, rather than conventional stiff ones, can easily vibrate multiple times with large amplitude, enabling frequency multiplication of CS-TENG and producing amplified output charges. Combining with the top electrode design to sufficiently utilize charges at liquid-solid interface, a record-high output charge of 158 nC is realized by single droplet. The energy conversion efficiency of DM-TENG is 2.66-fold of D-TENG. An array system with the specially designed power management circuit is also demonstrated for building self-powered system, offering promising applications for efficiently harvesting raindrop energy.

Keywords: droplet energy; dual-mode; elastic potential energy; frequency multiplication; triboelectric nanogenerator.

Abstract

Grants and funding