Design of DC-Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Energy Harvesting

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) is a term used to describe harvested electricity made by the use of electrostatic charge between two triboelectric materials. It works in 4 different methods; vertical contact-separation mode, linear sliding mode, single-electrode mode, and free-standing mode. This project focuses on vertical contact-separation mode whereby two materials of different electron affinities are vertically placed in contact with each other, and as they are separated from each other, an electric potential is induced in the interfacial region and the electrodes, causing a flow of electrons within the circuit to maintain equilibrium in the electrostatic field. The two materials are then brought in contact again, and the triboelectric charges disappear, causing the induced electrons to return. The project examines the triboelectric effect of the vertical contact-separation mode as it is tested against four different combinations of different materials: Aluminum and Copper as fixed electrodes, and Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), Kapton, and skin as the triboelectric layers. The results of this experiment showed that PTFE as a triboelectric layer generated the highest peak voltage of 0.888 V among the 4 different materials, with an estimated surface charge density of 8.58525 x 10-12 C.m-2. This shows that the developed DC-TENG can generate satisfactory results and can be further improved to be used in various applications