Highly efficient and continuous triboelectric power harvesting based on a porous β-phase poly(vinylidene fluoride) aerogel

Abstract

An additive-free β-phase porous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) aerogel with high electron affinity was successfully prepared through a simple solvent exchange method. The as-prepared additive-free PVDF aerogel shows high output performance when used as a triboelectric layer in a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). High output performance with an open-circuit voltage (V_oc) of 90 V and a short-circuit current (I_sc) of 15 μA are obtained under a periodic stress of 16 N (0.08 MPa) at a frequency of 10 Hz, and the calculated power density is 6.15 W m⁻², which represents an 8.2-fold enhancement compared to TENGs based on non-aerogel PVDF. The TENG based on the β-phase PVDF aerogel can light up 30 blue LEDs. Furthermore, the prepared TENG can also be used as a self-powered motion sensor with high sensitivity. The non-crosslinked PVDF aerogel has the potential to be used for high-performance TENG and self-powered sensing applications. This research provides preliminary insights into the application of porous non-crosslinked polymer aerogels in the field of energy harvesting.