posted on 2024-01-10, 13:34authored byJingzhe Sun, Jiwoo Lee, Seunghye Han, Yongwei Li, Jong-Jin Park, Jihyun Bae
The demand for clean-energy
collection has gradually increased
in recent years, making triboelectric nanogenerators a promising research
field, because of their advantages in convenient manufacturing, diversified
materials, and diverse synthesis and modification possibilities. However,
recent studies indicate that charge decay, a major limiting factor
in the triboelectric output, prevents the induced charge from combining
with the bottom electrode, leading to charge loss. The use of charge-trapping
sites to retain the induced charge generated during the friction process
is an important solution in the field of triboelectric nanogenerator
research. This study proposes the use of an elastic ink with macroscopic
magnetism as trapping sites by coating the ink as dots between the
polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) dielectric layer and the electrode
layer. Nickel particles in the magnetic ink are doped into the system
as microcapacitors, which prevent the combination of the friction
layer and induced charges on the back electrode. Because the nickel
itself can be used as a charge-potential trap to capture the charge
introduced by the charge-injection process, the charge can be maintained
for a long time and achieve a long-term high-output state. The output
voltage was more than 6 times that of the reference group without
the magnetic-ink coating after 3 h. The results provide a reference
direction for research on preventing charge decay and trapping charges
in triboelectric nanogenerators.