Electrospun Nanofiber Covered Polystyrene Micro-Nano Hybrid Structures for Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Supercapacitor

Abstract

Recently, tremendous research on small energy supply devices is gaining popularity with the immerging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Especially, energy conversion and storage devices can provide opportunities for small electronics. In this research, a micro-nano structured design of electrodes is newly developed for high performing hybrid energy systems with the improved effective surface area. Further, it could be simply fabricated through two-steps synthesis of electrospinning and glass transition of a novel polystyrene (PS) substrate. Herein, the electro-spun nanofiber of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and Nylon 66 (Nylon) are applied to the dielectric layer of a triboelectric generator (TENG), while the PAN and polyaniline (PANI) composites is utilized as an electroactive material of supercapacitor (SC). As a result, the self-charging power system is successfully integrated with the wrinkled PAN/PS (W-PAN/PS@PANI)-SC and W-TENG by using a rectifier. According to the fabricated hybrid energy systems, the electrical energy produced by W-TENG can be successfully stored into as-fabricated W-PAN/PS@PANI-SC and can also turn on a commercial green LED with the stored energy. Therefore, the micro-nano structured electrode designed for hybrid energy systems can contribute to improve the energy conversion and storage performance of various electronic devices.