Synergetic enhancement of energy harvesting performance in triboelectric nanogenerator using ferroelectric polarization for self-powered IR signaling and body activity monitoring

Abstract

The switchable dipole moments and high piezoelectric coefficients in ferroelectric materials are the state-of-the-art used in piezoelectric energy harvesting. Hybridizing the triboelectric (TENG) and piezoelectric (PNG) shows great potential in harvesting the biomechanical energy by utilizing the ferroelectric dipoles embedded within the polymer. Unlike most of the previous approach to increase hybrid output by the external configuration of piezoelectric and triboelectric between two contact surfaces, in this paper, the output performance is significantly enhanced by improving the output performance of TENG by introducing a ferroelectric (Ba_0.85Ca_0.15)(Ti_0.90Zr_0.10)O_3−x BiHoO₃ (x = 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1) (BCZTBH termed further) particles in PDMS which acts as a negative triboelectric layer. The structural and piezoelectric properties of BCZTBH particles are correlated in this report with the necessary characterization techniques. The systematic study of integrating single unit hybrid generator (S-HG) in a stacked manner paves the way to develop cost-effective, highly efficient ferroelectric films for utilization in the next-generation energy harvesting. The performance of the device is boosted by adopting a multi-stack configuration by designing a multi-stack hybrid generator (MS-HG) that could generate an electrical output of 300 V and a power density of 157 mW m⁻² upon mechanical excitations. Further, enhanced and reliable performance of the MS-HG is demonstrated as a proof of application by effectively integrating a capacitor, infrared transmitter and receiver into a self-powered wireless infrared communication module and body activity counter/monitoring.