Additively manufactured triboelectric nanogenerator with enhanced output performance by electrically poled polyvinylidene fluoride for energy harvesting application
摘要
The demand for high-performance triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) to power the wearables devices, flexible electronics, and IoT devices is steadily growing. Additive manufacturing (AM) is being used more often to create TENGs because of its versatility in producing intricate structures. The utilisation of polyamide-6 (PA6) as a positive tribomaterial and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as a negative tribomaterial, both produced using the fused deposition modeling process, is examined in this paper. Two different poling methods, contact poling and corona poling, were used to increase PVDF’s β-phase content, dielectric constant, and charge trapping ability to improve TENG performance. Quantification of the β-phase in poled PVDF was done using important characterisation techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The results showing that PVDF poled by corona poling had better dielectric characteristics and formed a strongly polarised β-phase, which greatly helps to increase the output of the TENG device. Especially, the corona-poled PVDF-PA6 TENG provide enhanced triboelectric energy output performance with an open circuit voltage of 95 V, a short-circuit current of 11 μA, and a peak power density of 1.6 Wm−2. Additionally, the additive manufacturing process leads to further improvement in charge transfer between two tribolayer by increasing the surface contact area through consistent layer deposition and enhanced surface roughness. The novelty of this work lies in its demonstration of how AM, combined with poling techniques, can significantly improve the functionality of TENGs for sustainable energy harvesting.