Modeling Particle-Doped Materials for Performance Improvement of Contact-Separation Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are an attractive energy harvesting technology due to their high efficiency and vast applications in self-powered sensors. In this work, dielectric–dielectric contact-separation TENGs were modeled with time-dependent finite element simulations with the objective of improving TENG’s performance by enhancing the relative permittivity ( (Formula presented.) ).To achieve this, the chosen material (PDMS, (Formula presented.) ) was doped with SrTiO3 ( (Formula presented.) = 300) particles. The open-circuit voltage ( (Formula presented.) ) and short-circuit current ( (Formula presented.) ) remained constant as (Formula presented.) increased, as predicted by existent models, but in contradiction with available experimental data. Thus, we introduced a charge correction model relating (Formula presented.) and surface charge density, allowing us to observe an increase in TENG performance output ( (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) ). This work shows that finite element simulations are suitable for better understanding and optimizing TENGs’ performance.