Durable Roller‐Based Swing‐Structured Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Water Wave Energy Harvesting

Abstract

AbstractOcean energy is a kind of clean and renewable energy source, but it cannot be efficiently harvested by traditional electromagnetic generators, due to its low‐frequency characteristic. The emergence of triboelectric nanogenerators provides a more promising technology for collecting ocean energy. In this work, a durable roller‐based swing‐structured triboelectric nanogenerator (RS‐TENG) is designed and fabricated for low‐frequency water wave energy harvesting. The rolling structure reduces the wear between triboelectric materials and improves the device's durability. After a continuous operation of 1 260 000 cycles, the attenuation of the electrical outputs of the RS‐TENG is below 1.6%, exhibiting excellent durability. At the same time, the output current can arrive at 53.2 µA. Under the triggering of water waves, the RS‐TENG can generate an output power of 4.27 mW, corresponding to a power density of 1.16 W m−3. After the arraying, the output performance can be doubled, so that the TENG can successfully power an environmental monitoring sensor and ensure long‐term stable operation of the sensor. This work provides an effective strategy for improving the device durability, which benefits the practical applications of the TENGs in large‐scale blue energy harvesting.