Integration of Flexible Supercapacitors with Triboelectric Nanogenerators: A Review

Abstract

The ever-growing interest in wearable electronic devices has unleashed a strong demand for sustainable and flexible power sources that are represented by the combination of flexible energy harvesting with storage devices/technologies. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG), which harvest mechanical energy and charge their matching supercapacitors (SCs), may form a distributed power system with flexibility to tap their potential applications in powering wearable electronic devices. This review aims to cover the recent progress in the integration of TENG with flexible SC in terms of operation principle, material selection, device configuration and power management, with an accent on the application scenario in flexible wearable electronics. Further, the current shortcomings, challenges and new prospects for future developments in the emerging field of integrated flexible TENG-SCs for self-powered wearable electronics are discussed.