High Performance Triboelectric Nanogenerator by Hot Embossing on Self-Assembled Micro-Particles

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a novel technology for energy harvesting and active sensing which shows a great potential toward extracting the ambient kinetic energy. The surface morphology of triboelectric layers is one of the most important elements for enhancing the output of TENG devices. Current surface modification methods mostly require complicated, long term, size limited, and costly processes. This paper presents a cost effective, facile, repeatable, and fast method for large scale surface modification of triboelectric layers which significantly enhance the performance of TENG devices. This method simply utilizes the hot-embossing of polymers on self-assembled micro-particles to create semi-ordered micro-sized structures on the surfaces. The modified surfaces increase the output performance of the TENG such as open circuit voltage and short circuit current for more than four times. As the presence of water degrades the output of TENG, this technique is very beneficial to remarkably improve the hydrophobicity of the contact layers. The proposed method can be applied to a variety of polymers with an area scalable fabrication toward the use of TENG in real world industrial applications.