2014/04/01 by Guang Zhu, Yusheng Zhou, Peng Bai +4 · 2 citations
Engineering · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Innovative Energy Harvesting Technologies #Energy Harvesting in Wireless Networks
paper · doi:10.1002/adma.201400021
openalex publication_date 2014/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Effectively harvesting ambient mechanical energy is the key for realizing self-powered and autonomous electronics, which addresses limitations of batteries and thus has tremendous applications in sensor networks, wireless devices, and wearable/implantable electronics, etc. Here, a thin-film-based micro-grating triboelectric nanogenerator (MG-TENG) is developed for high-efficiency power generation through conversion of mechanical energy. The shape-adaptive MG-TENG relies on sliding electrification between complementary micro-sized arrays of linear grating, which offers a unique and straightforward solution in harnessing energy from relative sliding motion between surfaces. Operating at a sliding velocity of 10 m/s, a MG-TENG of 60 cm(2) in overall area, 0.2 cm(3) in volume and 0.6 g in weight can deliver an average output power of 3 W (power density of 50 mW cm(-2) and 15 W cm(-3)) at an overall conversion efficiency of ∼ 50%, making it a sufficient power supply to regular electronics, such as light bulbs. The scalable and cost-effective MG-TENG is practically applicable in not only harvesting various mechanical motions but also possibly power generation at a large scale.