Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG) for Future Energy Harvesting Devices

With the growing energy requirement and the fast emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a greater need for the sensors to be used in the IoT systems which is estimated to exceed 200 billion by 2025. Therefore, there is a huge requirement for the energy supplies without the recharging and replacement of the charge storage device for their sustainable performance. Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG) is presently the front runner in this area and has attracted considerable attention due to its high instantaneous output power, broad selection of available materials, eco-friendly and inexpensive fabrication process and various working modes customized for target applications. In this paper, we will demonstrate the fabrication and characterization of low cost, power-efficient TENG with copper (Cu), Aluminum (Al), gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as a metal layers and Poly Methyl Methacrylate (PMMA), Poly Tetra Fluoroethylene (PTFE) and Polyimide as a polymer layers. Fluorine Tin Oxide (FTO) and glass has been used as a non-flexible substrate on which layers have been deposited using DC Magnetron sputtering and Spin-Coating techniques. These metal-polymer thin layers were then joined together to fabricate different TENG devices using polyurethane (PU) as a spacer. Comparative study of various TENG was conducted using SDS1022-DSO which shows AC sine voltages on pressing and releasing these devices. AC sine voltages of all TENG show different characteristics that are time-varying waveforms.