Natural Silkworm Cocoon-Based Hierarchically Architected Composite Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting

Qian Wang, Bingang Xu, Junxian Huang, Di Tan

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Silk-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been demonstrated as an ideal platform for self-powered systems. The source of silk, Bombyx mori, entails a valuable ingredient, sericin (SS), viewed as a binder in composites. Interestingly, SS is rich in amorphous region when subject to external pressure. However, most researchers remove the SS component when designing silk-TENGs to eliminate immunological responses as implantation in vivo through complicated degumming, rehydration, and dialysis procedures. Herein, integral SS retention was utilized to fabricate silk-TENGs without affecting the output performance. We designed, for the first time, an ultra-robust and natural silkworm cocoon layer (SCL)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-TENG as an energy harvester to scavenge waste energy from human motions. The working mechanisms and influence of operational parameters are explored and studied. Working in the contact-separation mode, the electrical outputs of the SCL/PDMS-TENG in terms of open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, and power density reaches 126 V, 3 μA, and 216 mW/m2, respectively. The integrated self-charging TENG is demonstrated to power small electronic electronics and monitor human motions. This work widens a new dielectric material selection with SS retention to boost the output performance of TENGs for practical applications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)9182-9192
JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume15
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Feb 2023

Keywords

  • energy harvesting
  • hierarchical structure
  • silkworm cocoon
  • stacked effect
  • triboelectric nanogenerator

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science

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