High performance thermally conductive biobased polyamide composites for heat resistant triboelectric nanogenerators

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are a feasible solution to the energy shortage. As a high performance engineering thermoplastic, polyamides (PAs) have often been used as triboelectric materials of TENGs. However, most existing PAs are synthesized from petroleum-based monomers, and their production processes involve greenhouse gas emissions, which conflict with the sustainable development of TENGs. Accordingly, the research on biobased PAs has attracted increasing attention. Herein, heat-resistant semi-aromatic polyamide (HR-PA) was designed and synthesized from terephthalic acid, butylenediamine, and biobased pentanediamine. HR-PA exhibited outstanding thermal properties in terms of glass transition temperature (Tg ~ 130 °C), melting point (Tm ~ 308 °C) and initial decomposition temperature at weight loss of 5% (Td5wt% ~ 436 °C). The heat-resistant triboelectric nanogenerator (HR-TENG) was fabricated with HR-PA and high thermal conductivity filler hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). Introduction of h-BN with good thermal dissipation, the resultant HR-TENG possessed excellent electronic output performances at elevated temperatures, for instance, maximum open-circuit voltage (Voc) ~ 90 V, short-circuit current (Isc) ~ 8.7 μA, and short-circuit charge (Qsc) ~ 30 nC at 150 °C. Consequently, this work paves the way for developing HR-TENG that can be integrated into firefighting protective clothing systems for real-time physiological health monitoring.