Triboelectric effect in emerging energy and self-powered sensing devices
Ying-Chih Lai1*
1材料系, 中興大學, 台中, Taiwan
* Presenter:Ying-Chih Lai, email:lai423@gmail.com
Deformable and wearable soft devices (including sensors, electronics, and machines) have
attracted great interest because they cannot only extend the scope of smart systems but also provide
compliant and safer user experience. Operating those devices inevitably need power sources.
However, traditional batteries suffer from heavy weight, bulky volume, and limited capacity and
lifetime, hindering the progress and practical uses of those emerging devices. Toward the soft future,
it is necessary to explore new energy technology. In this talk, deformable and mechanically-durable
energy-collecting triboelectric nanogenerators will be demonstrated for not only serving as new
energy providers but also self-powered sensing uses. First, super-stretchable triboelectric
nanogenerators will be presented for generating electricity by contacting with other materials
regardless of various extreme deformation required from uses, such as extreme stretching, multiple
twists and folds. Particularly, even experiencing severe tearing damages, the device can retain its
functionality to act as a power source for other components. Such technology can also be introduced
into fabric materials for wearable energy and fabric-based self-powered sensing uses. Then, we will
discuss the use in self-powered and deformable electronic skins that can actively sense proximity,
contact, and pressure to external stimuli via self-generating electricity. Further, the perfect integration
of the tribo-skins and soft actuators enables soft robots to perform various actively sensing and
interactive tasks including actively perceiving their muscle motions and working states, checking baby
diaper conditions, and even detecting subtle human physiological signals. The self-generating signals
can even drive optoelectronic devices for visual communication and be processed for diverse
sophisticated uses. Subsequently, a self-healing, highly-transparent, and super-stretchable triboelectric
nanogenerator with energy-extracting and activity-sensing abilities will be demonstrated in the use of
self-powered electronic skin, human-interactive interfaces, and so forth. We will also introduce examples for the integration of 2D-material devices with triboelectric nanogenerators. These works may open the crucial doors for the tremendous potentials of wearable/stretchable/deformable electronics, artificial electronic-sensory skins, smart interfaces, and soft robots.


Keywords: triboelectric nanogenerators , electronic skins, flexible devices