For environment-friendly renewable energy, blue energy, which is ocean-related energy, has gained an increasing interest due to its huge potential and vast wasted energy. This study suggests a promising buoy-type ocean energy harvesting structure based on a thermoplastic polymer, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a dielectric film for ocean monitoring system. The PMMA dielectric thin film can be easily fabricated with nanopatterned morphological characteristics by thermal nanoimprinting lithography. The buoy-type suggested energy harvesting structure can convert ocean wave energy into electrical energy to power a commercially available Li-ion battery using a regulator-based circuit.
A triboelectric energy harvester with a long-lasting and steady output was developed by using an escapement mechanism to induce a much larger torque after storing the irregular input motion as elastic energy in a spiral torsion spring. The escapement mechanism-based triboelectric nanogenerator (EM-TENG) consists of the spiral torsion spring, escapement part, and a torsional resonator for regular operation and frequency up-conversion using freestanding mode interdigitated electrodes. Under only 5 s of input motion, the EM-TENG produces long-lasting and steady output power for 110 s by using the escapement mechanism.
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) can be utilized as power sources of wearable devices because of flexibility, light weight and cost effective devices. However, materials utilized in the wearable devices should be carefully selected to avoid side effects to the human body. In this work, we developed a chitosan-diatom (CD) composite film for triboelectric nanogenerators(TENGs) and fabricated a skin-attachable motion sensor. The CD film was composed of the chitosan and diatom silica. All of materials are biomaterials which cannot cause side effects. The biocompatible diatom silica embedded in the chitosan film enhanced the positive charge density of the chitosan film. The CD film was assembled with the fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) film for a contact and separation TENG. The maximum instantaneous power density was 468 mW/m2, which was 3.5 times higher than the chitosan film. Furthermore, the skin-attachable motion sensor was developed base on the CD TENG. We believe this work can provide the simple and safe way to increase the performance of biocompatible TENGs for wearable devices.
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