High-Output Wearable Flow Ring-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator via Opposite Charging Intermediate Layer

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is one of the emerging energy harvesting technologies with the potential to be an alternative energy source. Owing to the various advantages of TENG, such as low cost, simple design, and high applicability, several researchers reported wearable TENG devices that can power electronics by harvesting human motion. However, as the human body has limited movement, the existing wearable TENG devices can only generate low power to turn on the electronics. In this study, a flow ring-based TENG (FR-TENG) is fabricated, which can be applied to wearable devices to generate high voltage and current output by including an opposite charging intermediate layer. By the simulation and experimental results, FR-TENG is optimized to generate a high output, that is, peak open-circuit voltage and closed-circuit current of up to 1020 V and 260 mA, respectively, owing to the electrostatic discharge. By these results, sleeve-type wearable FR-TENG is fabricated which can effectively harvest energy from arm movement. The sleeve-type FR-TENG can generate a high output owing to the working mechanism of FR-TENG; the high output was used to turn on 200 LEDs.