Nanotechnology Center, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Feb 8;9(5):4988-4997. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b14729. Epub 2017 Jan 26.
A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is an innovative kind of energy harvester recently developed on the basis of organic materials for converting mechanical energy into electricity through the combined use of the triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction. Polymeric materials and their microstructures play key roles in the generation, accumulation, and retainment of triboelectric charges, which decisively determines the final electric performance of TENGs. Herein we report a simple and efficient breath figure (BF) micromolding approach to rapidly regulate the surface microstructures of polymeric films for the assembly of TENGs. Honeycomb porous films with adjustable pore size and dimensional architectures were first prepared by the BF technique through simply adjusting the concentration of the polymer solution. They were then used as negative molds for straightforward synthesis of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films with different microlens arrays (MLAs) and lens sizes, which were further assembled for TENGs to investigate the influence of film microstructures. All MLA-based TENGs were found to have an obviously enhanced electric performance in comparison with a flat-PDMS-film-based TENG. Specifically, up to 3 times improvement in the electric performance can be achieved by the MLA-based TENG with optimal surface microstructures over flat-PDMS-film-based TENG under the same triggering conditions. A MLA-based TENG was further successfully used to harvest the waste mechanical energy generated by different human body motions, including finger tapping, hand clapping, and walking with a frequency ranging from 0.5 to 5.5 Hz.
摩擦纳米发电机（TENG）是一种基于有机材料的新型能量收集器，它通过摩擦起电效应和静电感应的结合，将机械能转化为电能。聚合物材料及其微观结构在摩擦电荷的产生、积累和保持中起着关键作用，这最终决定了 TENG 的最终电性能。在此，我们报告了一种简单有效的呼吸图案（BF）微成型方法，可快速调节聚合物薄膜的表面微观结构，用于组装 TENG。通过简单调整聚合物溶液的浓度，BF 技术首先制备出具有可调孔径和尺寸结构的蜂窝状多孔薄膜。然后，它们被用作具有不同微透镜阵列（MLA）和透镜尺寸的聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）薄膜的负模具，进一步组装用于 TENG 以研究薄膜微观结构的影响。与基于平坦 PDMS 薄膜的 TENG 相比，所有基于 MLA 的 TENG 都表现出明显增强的电性能。具体来说，在相同的触发条件下，具有最佳表面微观结构的基于 MLA 的 TENG 的电性能可以提高 3 倍。基于 MLA 的 TENG 还成功地用于收集不同人体运动产生的废机械能，包括手指敲击、拍手和步行，频率范围为 0.5 至 5.5 Hz。
