An ultra-low cost triboelectric flowmeter

Abstract

In this paper, we present an ultra-low cost flowmeter suitable for both gases and fluids. Differently from other flowmeters presented in the literature, the prototype is based on the triboelectric effect. The realized device is extremely low cost because it uses commercial silicone as triboelectric material. The comparison between experimental measurements and output data of a commercial flowmeter, used as reference, demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed solution in both constant and variable flow conditions. Moreover, thanks to its reconfigurable architecture, the realized device can be used for both redundant measurements and triboelectric energy harvesting purposes.