Construction And Performance Study Of Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerators With Environmental Tolerance

With the rapid development of the internet of things and artificial intelligence technology,flexible electronic devices have broken the defects of traditional rigid electronic devices that are uncomfortable and easily damaged during use,which are favored by the majority of researchers.Triboelectric nanogenerators(TENG)can collect randomly distributed high entropy energy in the environment and convert it into effective electric energy,and they are widely studied as micro/nano power sources and self-powered sensors in the field of flexible wearable electronics.In recent years,in order to realize the application of TENG in extreme environments,constructing environment tolerant flexible TENG has become a hot topic.In this paper,two environmentally tolerant flexible TENGs are constructed by functional modification of gel electrode and the silk film friction layer,respectively,to address the problems of brittle flexible hydrogel electrode in low temperature environment and flammable natural material friction layer in high temperature environment.Firstly,flexible hydrogel electrodes are prone to drastic changes in physical and chemical properties in cold environments,resulting in reduced mechanical flexibility and conductivity,which limits the normal operation of TENG in low-temperature environments.To address this limitation,in this paper,glycerol was introduced into hydrogel system to reduce the freezing point of water,and antifreezing PVA/SA/MXene(PSM)organic hydrogel was prepared.The non-covalent bond interaction between glycerol and PVA and SA molecular chains give PSM organic hydrogel excellent mechanical properties and low temperature stability.With PSM organic hydrogel as the flexible electrode and PDMS as the friction layer,a single electrode anti-freezing triboelectric nanogenerator(AF-TENG)was constructed,which had excellent electrical output performance(150 V)and stability(2 000 cycles)at low temperature,and can charge capacitors and electronic watches,realizing the application of high-strength organic hydrogel-based TENG in extremely cold environments.Secondly,most of the natural materials used to construct the friction layer of TENG are prone to deformation in high temperatures or flame environments,which leads to the degradation of TENG performance.Based on this problem,this paper introduces calcium chloride as a flame retardant to prepare a flame retardant silk protein film(SF).Calcium chloride can give SF excellent flame retardant properties through dehydration and free radical quenching.The single-electrode silk-based flame retardant triboelectric nanogenerator(FR-TENG)was constructed with SF as the friction layer and silver nanowires(Ag NWs)as the electrode layer.FR-TENG has high electrical output performance(150 V)and fatigue resistance(10 000 cycles),and can be used as micro/nano power sources to charge capacitors and drive 47 LEDs.Based on the FR-TENG,a triboelectric signal-triggered forest fire alarm and GPS positioning system were constructed,which can quickly and accurately locate the geographical position of trapped people or rescuers,broadening the application of TENGs in fire rescue scenarios.