Abstract
Recent progress in triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) has demonstrated their promising potential as a high-efficiency mechanical energy harvesting technology, and plenty of effort has been devoted to improving the power output by maximizing the triboelectric surface charge density. However, due to high-voltage air breakdown, most of the enhanced surface charge density brought by material/surface optimization or external ion injection is not retainable or usable for electricity generation during the operation of contact-separation-triggered TENGs. Here, the existence of the air breakdown effect in a contact-separation mode TENG with a low threshold surface charge density of ≈40–50 µC m−2 is first validated under the high impedance external load, and then followed by the theoretical study of the maximized effective energy output as limited by air breakdown for contact-separation-triggered TENGs. The effects of air pressure and gas composition are also studied and propose promising solutions for reducing the air breakdown effect. This research provides a crucial fundamental study for TENG technology and its further development and applications.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1700049 |
| Journal | Advanced Functional Materials |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 24 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledgements: Y.Z. and C.W. contributed equally to this work. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR-1505319), the KAUST, the Hightower Chair foundation, and the “Thousands Talents” program for pioneer researcher and his innovation team, China.
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.