A Multifunctional All-Nanofiber Membrane-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting and Motion Sensing

Abstract

Wearable electronics have become a hot research field of next-generation electronics. Despite significant progress in the advancement of wearable electronics, powering these devices with sustainable energy sources and equipping them with special functions remain formidable challenges. Herein, a multifunctional all-nanofiber-based TENG prepared by a simple electrospinning technique is reported, which exhibits good biodegradability, antibacterial activity, UV-protective, flame retardant properties, and hydrophobicity for human motion sensing and biomechanical energy harvesting. This TENG is fabricated by sandwiching a silver nanowire (AgNW) between a sodium alginate (SA) nanofiber membrane-based triboelectric layer and a modified multifunctional substrate layer. Due to the added poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and BaTiO₃ nanoparticles (BTO) in the SA nanofiber membrane, the output voltage and transferred charge of the TENG are increased by about 4.95 and 3.89 times, and it exhibits a high output power density of 654 mW m^-2. Additionally, after modification with phytic acid, octadecylamine, and TiO₂ nanoparticles, the nanofiber membrane exhibits special properties, such as UV-protective, hydrophobicity, flame retardancy, antibacterial capabilities, and degradability. Finally, the constructed TENG device is utilized to monitor various human motions in a self-powered manner and harvest energy from body movements to power wearable sensors. Given the outstanding features, the fabricated TENG paves a new and practical pathway to develop next-generation wearable electronics.