Harvesting Broad Frequency Band Blue Energy by a Triboelectric-Electromagnetic Hybrid Nanogenerator.
Ocean wave associated energy is huge, but it has little use toward world energy. Although such blue energy is capable of meeting all of our energy needs, there is no effective way to harvest it due to its low frequency and irregular amplitude, which may restrict the application of traditional power generators. In this work, we report a hybrid nanogenerator that consists of a spiral-interdigitated-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (S-TENG) and a wrap-around electromagnetic generator (W-EMG) for harvesting ocean energy. In this design, the S-TENG can be fully isolated from the external environment through packaging and indirectly driven by the noncontact attractive forces between pairs of magnets, and W-EMG can be easily hybridized. Notably, the hybrid nanogenerator could generate electricity under either rotation mode or fluctuation mode to collect energy in ocean tide, current, and wave energy due to the unique structural design. In addition, the characteristics and advantages of outputs indicate that the S-TENG is irreplaceable for harvesting low rotation speeds (<100 rpm) or motion frequencies (<2 Hz) energy, which fits the frequency range for most of the water wave based blue energy, while W-EMG is able to produce larger output at high frequencies (>10 Hz). The complementary output can be maximized and hybridized for harvesting energy in a broad frequency range. Finally, a single hybrid nanogenerator unit was demonstrated to harvest blue energy as a practical power source to drive several LEDs under different simulated water wave conditions. We also proposed a blue energy harvesting system floating on the ocean surface that could simultaneously harvest wind, solar, and wave energy. The proposed hybrid nanogenerator renders an effective and sustainable progress in practical applications of the hybrid nanogenerator toward harvesting water wave energy offered by nature.
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.|State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Cyrus Tang Center for Sensor Materials and Applications, Zhejiang University , Hangzhou 310027, China.|Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University , Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China.
Zhen
Z
Wen
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.|Department of Applied Physics, Chongqing University , Chongqing 400044, China.
Hengyu
H
Guo
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Yunlong
Y
Zi
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Min-Hsin
MH
Yeh
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Xin
X
Wang
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Jianan
J
Deng
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Jie
J
Wang
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Shengming
S
Li
Department of Applied Physics, Chongqing University , Chongqing 400044, China.
Chenguo
C
Hu
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Cyrus Tang Center for Sensor Materials and Applications, Zhejiang University , Hangzhou 310027, China.
Liping
L
Zhu
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.|Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) , Beijing, 100083, China.
Zhong Lin
ZL
Wang
EMG; TENG; blue energy; broad frequency band; hybrid nanogenerator