Superhydrophobic, Humidity-Resistant, and Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting and Wearable Self-Powered Sensing

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) as self-powered
sensing devices
have attracted extensive interest in the field of flexible wearable
electronics. Endowing TENGs with excellent environmental adaptability
and high sensitivity is considered to be one of the promising strategies
to satisfy future intelligent electronic sensing devices. The interference
of a humid environment and common bare electrode has been a great
hindrance to the output performance of TENGs. In this paper, a core–shell
superhydrophobic and flexible triboelectric nanogenerator (abbreviated
as PP/AgH-TENG) was prepared based on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
film surface modified with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles
as the triboelectric layer and AgNWs/PVA hydrogel as the electrode.
The obtained PP/AgH-TENG (4 × 4 cm2 area) can easily
light about 360 commercial LED lights with a maximum power density
of 3.07 W/m2 by tapping. It is important that PP/AgH-TENG
can overcome the effect of water molecules on charge transfer in a
humid environment and quickly recover and maintain a high output.
In addition, the bracelet made of PP/AgH-TENG can collect the mechanical
energy generated by human movement, and these output performance curves
clearly reflect the state of human movement. This research has great
application potential in the field of intelligent wearable self-powered
sensing.