title: Single-electrode-based rotating triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting energy from tires.
abstract: Rotational energy is abundant and widely available in our living environment. Harvesting ambient rotational energy has attracted great attention. In this work, we report a single-electrode-based rotating triboelectric nanogenerator (SR-TENG) for converting rotational energy into electric energy. The unique advantage of introducing the single-electrode TENG is to overcome the difficulty in making the connection in harvesting rotational energy such as from a moving and rotating tire/wheel. The fabricated device consists of a rotary acrylic disc with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) blades and an Al electrode fixed on the base. The systematical experiments and theoretical simulations indicate that the asymmetric SR-TENGs exhibit much better output performances than those of the symmetric TENGs at the same rotation rates. The asymmetric SR-TENG with seven PTFE units at the rotation rate of 800 r/min can deliver a maximal output voltage of 55 V and a corresponding output power of 30 μW on a load of 100 MΩ, which can directly light up tens of red light-emitting diodes. The SR-TENG has been utilized to harvest mechanical energy from rotational motion of a bicycle wheel. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the SR-TENG can be applied to scavenge wind energy and as a self-powered wind speed sensor with a sensitivity of about 0.83 V/(m/s). This study further expands the operation principle of a single-electrode-based TENG and many potential applications of TENGs for scavenging ambient rotational energy and as a self-powered environment monitoring sensor.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
authors.forename: Hulin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Xiandai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Yuanjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Yusheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Chenguo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Zhong Lin
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Wang