Flexible microcavity surface triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting power in different operating modes

Abstract

In this work, a flexible triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) consisting of a flexible printed circuit and microcavity surface polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for harvesting power was proposed and studied. The electric power generated from the TENG is based on the triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction. The cavity surface demolded from the sandpaper was employed for improving the TENG performance. The TENG could be operated in the vertical contact mode and bending contact mode. In order to estimate the performance in the different motion modes, two measurement setups were designed for measuring the TENG output power. According to the measurement results, higher cavity density has better output performance. The maximum output power of 1.77 μW with the 6.55 MΩ loading resistance for the vertical contact mode and the maximum output power 0.38 μW with the 6.95 MΩ loading resistance for the bending contact was achieved, respectively.