Seesaw structured triboelectric nanogenerator with enhanced output performance and its applications in self-powered motion sensing

As the world entering the era of internet of things (IoTs), billions of sensor nodes call for the energy for the new era, which is important application of entropy in energy science. Energy harvesting and self-powered technology based on triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) have been widely recognized as effective solution to providing “random” energy for the “random” units in IoTs. Contact-separation mode, which is one of the most fundamental working mode of TENG, has shown promising potential in mechanical energy harvester and self-powered sensors. In this work, a seesaw structured triboelectric nanogenerator (SS-TENG) is proposed based on contact-separation mode. This structure can largely enhance the relative motion velocity between two tribo-surfaces, and hence improve the output performance of the device. Furthermore, the electric signals of the SS-TENG can be tuned by structure modification to be asymmetric, which can be utilized to monitor the motion direction and velocity of passing objects as well as movement of human foot. After employing C programming, the output signals can be identified and logically analyzed through electric circuits or computers, enabling visual display of sensing results for practical applications. Therefore, this work not only provides a new way of performance enhancement for TENG but also proposes a novel strategy for self-powered motion sensing, showing great potential in the fields of mechanical energy scavenging, traffic monitoring, healthcare sensing, sports rehabilitation, and corrective exercise.