TY - JOUR
T1 - Surface microstructural engineering of silicone elastomers for high performance adhesive surface-enabled mechanical energy harvesters
AU - Fu, Haiyan
AU - Gong, Jianliang
AU - Zhong, Hao
AU - Yang, Bao
AU - Long, Zuchang
AU - Zeng, Jiqing
AU - Cheng, Zhiyu
AU - He, Jialin
AU - Xu, Bingang
AU - Chen, Yiwang
N1 - Funding Information:
J. Gong thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (52103278) for support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Royal Society of Chemistry
PY - 2022/3/21
Y1 - 2022/3/21
N2 - Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) based on the coupled effects of contact electrification (CE) and electrostatic induction are increasingly emerging as an efficient, economical, easily accessible and scalable electric power generating technique by scavenging the low-frequency mechanical energy that broadly exists but is wasted in the environment. This work demonstrated that the unique and unconventional CE technique of using viscoelastic polymer adhesives (VPAs) for the assembly of a class of adhesive surface-enabled TENGs (AS-TENGs) is a general and more highly efficient strategy for largely enhanced mechanical energy harvesting performance, just by surface microstructural engineering of their CE pairing material (such as silicone elastomers) for suitably lowering the interfacial adhesion. AS-TENGs possessed an unusual AC signal with electric peaks generated during the separating process obviously larger than those triggered during the contacting process, showing both unique force- and frequency-insensitive output characteristics. They generally output 1.79-6.17 times the average peak voltage achieved by conventional TENGs based on triboelectric materials with non-adhesive surfaces under the same triggering conditions (200-400 N and 1.1-3.3 Hz), equivalently generating 110-2215% more electric energy. One main reason for the outstanding performance of AS-TENGs was ascribed to the high triboelectric charge density of VPAs, while another main reason was owing to their intrinsic adhesion and viscoelasticity. They can lead to an instantaneous separation between VPA and SE surfaces like the sudden tensile failure of a rubber band, as a result of driving induced charges across a load in a less time for higher output current/voltage, which was verified by a newly proposed peak-to-peak time interval analysis. AS-TENGs are believed to have unique applications in either scavenging or detecting small mechanical energy generated in our daily work and life. As a proof of demonstration, they were finally developed as a class of flexible and freestanding mechanical energy harvesting and sensing units with a tailorable size and shape to be mounted on a keyboard for both scavenging typewriting mechanical energy and monitoring typewriting habits successfully.
AB - Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) based on the coupled effects of contact electrification (CE) and electrostatic induction are increasingly emerging as an efficient, economical, easily accessible and scalable electric power generating technique by scavenging the low-frequency mechanical energy that broadly exists but is wasted in the environment. This work demonstrated that the unique and unconventional CE technique of using viscoelastic polymer adhesives (VPAs) for the assembly of a class of adhesive surface-enabled TENGs (AS-TENGs) is a general and more highly efficient strategy for largely enhanced mechanical energy harvesting performance, just by surface microstructural engineering of their CE pairing material (such as silicone elastomers) for suitably lowering the interfacial adhesion. AS-TENGs possessed an unusual AC signal with electric peaks generated during the separating process obviously larger than those triggered during the contacting process, showing both unique force- and frequency-insensitive output characteristics. They generally output 1.79-6.17 times the average peak voltage achieved by conventional TENGs based on triboelectric materials with non-adhesive surfaces under the same triggering conditions (200-400 N and 1.1-3.3 Hz), equivalently generating 110-2215% more electric energy. One main reason for the outstanding performance of AS-TENGs was ascribed to the high triboelectric charge density of VPAs, while another main reason was owing to their intrinsic adhesion and viscoelasticity. They can lead to an instantaneous separation between VPA and SE surfaces like the sudden tensile failure of a rubber band, as a result of driving induced charges across a load in a less time for higher output current/voltage, which was verified by a newly proposed peak-to-peak time interval analysis. AS-TENGs are believed to have unique applications in either scavenging or detecting small mechanical energy generated in our daily work and life. As a proof of demonstration, they were finally developed as a class of flexible and freestanding mechanical energy harvesting and sensing units with a tailorable size and shape to be mounted on a keyboard for both scavenging typewriting mechanical energy and monitoring typewriting habits successfully.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128471535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/d2ta00343k
DO - 10.1039/d2ta00343k
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85128471535
SN - 2050-7488
VL - 10
SP - 9643
EP - 9654
JO - Journal of Materials Chemistry A
JF - Journal of Materials Chemistry A
IS - 17
ER -