| Energy is the blood of modern civilization,but where it comes from and how we get it is something that touches all our lives,which is also one of the most important interests for scientists.Nowadays,although power plants can satisfy part of the power need for ordered electronics at fixed sites,the remaining part has to be supplied by the “random” energy harvested from its surroundings using resources such as thermal,solar,mechanical motion.A triboelectric nanogenerator(TENG)is a good choice to power those electronics,as it can harvest almost every kind of motion energy thanks to the effort endeavored by the researchers all around the world.Ever since the first propose of TENG in 2012,its rapid development has tremendously excited many research communities from energy to sensors.To further march towards industrialization,achieving a higher output at different scenarios through innovative structure design is always desirable.In the meanwhile,spring steel plate has great flexible elasticity,mechanical property,a well-polished surface and fatigue-resistance,which makes it an outstanding material for the construction of TENGs.Herein,we dip into its potential capacities while designing TENG to provide practical cases and demonstrate spring steel plate is well performed on the way of designing a TENG to fulfill two specific goals.These include:(1)A notepad-like triboelectric generator has been designed and fabricated which can achieve high current output under low-velocity motion by utilizing spring steel plate.The elastic potential energy is employed to efficiently convert low-velocity motion to high-velocity motion to improve electromechanical conversion efficiency.The short-circuit current and power density are 205 μA and 9.86 W/m2,respectively,which is powerful enough to light up two hundred LEDs and charge a commercial capacitor.Besides,this TENG has been successfully applied to a self-powered door monitor.(2)We design and fabricate a TENG based on the spring steel plate.The unique five-blade,waterwheel-like electrode structure enabled the spring steel plate to impact the rotating Al electrode at high speed.And the output performance under low-velocity rotational motion could be greatly enhanced by utilizing a spring steel plate thanks to the conversion of elastic potential energy to kinetic energy.Moreover,a rotating speed and rotational angle sensor based on this TENG is demonstrated.(3)We design a novel TENG,which is based on one acryl board in the center with two identical spring steel plates on both sides,using which periodic contact/separation of the friction layers proceeds like Newton’s cradle,except for the intermittent input of mechanical energy to overcome the electrostatic interaction on the charged friction layers.Such a lamination structure in the original contact mode can provide considerably higher energy conversion efficiency than that of the friction layers in the original separation mode.With this new design,the output current of the TENG is 5.7 times as much as that of a common contact/separation TENG and 2.3 times as much as that of a similar structure TENG without the use of elasticity.In addition,the TENG is applied to a self-powered flashing clapping palm decorated by 29 LEDs.(4)A double-induced-mode integrated TENG based on spring steel plates is presented as a cost-effective,simple,and high-performance device for ambient vibration energy harvesting.The unique stackable rhombus structure,in which spring steel plates act both as skeletons and as electrodes,can enhance the output performance and maximize space utilization.The TENG with five repeated units in a volume of 12 cm*5 cm*0.4 cm can generate a short-circuit current of 51 μA and can transfer charges of 1.25 μC in a half period.The contrast experiment is conducted systematically and the results have proved that the TENG has a great advantage over the single-induced-mode TENG with only one side of a friction layer on its electrode.Besides,the TENG can easily power a commercial calculator and can be used as a door switch sensor.(5)We present a novel TENG based on magnetically induced retractable spring steel plates to develop energy harvesting from large amplitude periodic motion.The plate-like structural design ensures that the contact/separate direction of the friction layers is perpendicular to the direction of the external force,breaking the amplitude limitation of previous nanogenerators with vertical contact/separate motion.Moreover,we also demonstrate the great potential of the MR-TENG to serve as a self-powered displacement sensor and portable emergency power supply.(6)A novel idea for wireless electric energy transmission through various isolated solid media based on TENG is presented.The electric energy is first transformed into mechanical vibration energy in mechanical wave that can propagate well in solid medium,and then the vibration energy is harvested by a TENG.By employing the spring steel sheets and freestanding triboelectric-layer structure,the vibration TENG as an energy conversion unit has the advantages of high efficiency and facilitation,boosting this wireless energy transmission technology to be an alternative way of delivering electric energy through metal medium.The working principle and output performance have been systematically studied.A commercial capacitor can be charged from 0 to 10 V in 33 and 86 s isolated by an acrylic plate and a copper plate in thickness of 3 mm,respectively.The wireless electric transmission technology is also applied to deliver electric energy into a vacuum glove box and across glass wall successfully.(7)For the first time we introduce the oblate spheroidal TENG based on two novel TENG parts for all-weather blue energy harvesting.The TENG in the upper part is based on spring steel plates without complex substrates,making it possible to output considerable power in rough seas while maintains its extremely small volume.The TENG in the lower part consists of two copper-coated polymer films and a rolling ball which can capture weeny water wave energy from halcyon seas.The working mechanism and output performance are systematically studied.A maximum open-circuit voltage of 281 V and a short-circuit current of 76 μA can be achieved by one upper part,enough to charge a commercial capacitor for potential applications.More importantly,the proposed oblate spheroidal shell not only guarantees high sensitivity of TENG in the lower part,but also qualifies the TENG with unique self-stabilization,low consumables for the next generation of TENG with a new structural design toward all-weather blue energy harvesting.In general,based on spring steel plates,we introduce five novel TENGs with different structure design,each of them has its own unique advantages and capacities thanks to the excellent performance of spring steel plates,including elasticity,antifatigue,flexibility,and conductivity.Thereout,we dig into the every possible structure design of spring steel plates and demonstrate the potential application of spring steel plates on TENG,thus provide new material for future TENG design to march to the market.Besides,we also demonstrate the TENG-based wireless electric energy transmission and oblate spheroidal TENG for all-weather blue energy harvesting.The spring steel plates in those TENG have fulfilled their destination as we expected and reveals the enormous potential of spring steel plates for commercialization of TENG. |
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