High power triboelectric nanogenerator based on printed circuit board (PCB) technology

Harvesting mechanical energy from our surroundings to acquire a steady and high power output has attracted intensive interest due to the fast development of portable electronics. In this work, the disk-structured triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was prepared based on the mature printed circuit board (PCB) technology and the composite structure for effectively improving the utilization in space. A narrow grating of 1° was designed to produce high output. Operated at a rotation rate of 1, 000 rpm, the TENG produces a high output power density of 267 mW/cm² (total power output of 25.7 W) at a matched load of 0.93 MΩ. After introducing a transformer, the output power can be managed so that it can be directly used to charge a battery for a smart phone. With the PCB production technology, fabrication of high performance TENG at low cost and large-scale becomes feasible.