Humidity-Resistant, Conductive Fabric-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Efficient Energy Harvesting and Human–Machine Interaction Sensing

With the rapid development of triboelectric nanogenerators
(TENGs),
the exploration of self-powered, flexible, and wearable electronic
devices has attracted widespread attention. However, the choice of
tribomaterials and high humidity environment have a significant impact
on the triboelectricity of TENG. Therefore, we prepared a composite
fabric (HPC) with superhydrophobic and conductive properties, which
was used simultaneously as a tribopositive material and electrode
for the construction of promising wearable TENGs. Specifically, the
loading of polydopamine, carbon nanotubes, and polypyrrole on the
surface of the cotton fabric makes it have not only conductivity but
also enhanced tribopositive polarity. Then, cetyltrimethoxysilane
was selected to modify it to obtain superhydrophobicity. Compared
with the common TENGs with a separate tribolayer and electrode, the
integrated HPC-TENG shows the advantages of simpler structure and
lighter wear. Moreover, compared with the unmodified fabric-based
TENG, the performance of the proposed HPC-TENG is improved by nearly
7.2 times, and the maximum power density can reach 2.6 W m–2. This remarkable output can be attributed to the combination of
strong electron-giving groups, high electrical conductivity, and abundant
micro- and nanorough structure of the HPC fabric. More importantly,
due to the water repellency of the fabric surface, the high output
performance can be maintained under high humidity conditions. In addition,
HPC-TENG has potential applications as pressure sensors for human
motion status monitoring and multichannel sensing for smart game blanket
entertainment. The newly designed HPC-TENG offers a new strategy for
the development of superhydrophobic fabrics with an electrical conductivity,
energy harvesting, and self-powered sensor.