Triboelectric Nanogenerator Scavenging Sliding Motion Energy

Human beings are striving hard for a long time to come up with new energy solutions from various sources. Triboelectric Nano-generator (TENG) is one of the promising solutions which may harvest different type of mechanical energies in the form of electricity. Here in this article, we have brought up a simple design of TENG which works on one of the TENG modes. The free-standing sliding mode is one of the prominent TENG modes which produces consistent results. Two of the materials differ from each other were chosen from the triboelectric series. Kapton and aluminum were selected as two of the unlike materials. Both of the materials are in sticky tape form, having a thickness of ~50 µm, which were pasted on the acrylic sheets having dimensions 10×4 cm. Once these materials came into contact with each other through sliding, the friction was appeared in between materials and electrostatic charges were accumulated on the surface. After sliding, both of the sheets were in to and fro motion, the accumulated charges were collected by the copper wires. The generated charges came into the form of voltage and current. The open circuit voltage produced by proposed TENG reaches up to 40 V and short circuit current up to 20 µA. These results are enough much to power any low voltage rating mobile electronic appliance. TENGs are the future of mechanical energy harvesters through which almost any kind of mechanical energy can be converted into electricity.