Natural polymers based triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting biomechanical energy and monitoring human motion

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been proved as a promising energy harvester in recent years, but the challenges of exploring economically triboelectric materials still exist and have aroused interests of many researchers. In this paper, chitosan-silk fibroin-airlaid paper composite film (CSA film) was fabricated and then the CSA film based-triboelectric nanogenerator (CSA-TENG) was constructed, which presents an opportunity for natural polymers to be applied in triboelectric materials. Due to the excellent electron donating ability of CSA film, the CSA-TENG can harvest environmental energy with a high efficiency. More importantly, the as-designed CSA film based dual-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (CSA-D-TENG) is successfully assembled into hand clapper and trampoline to harvest mechanical energies generated by human bodies, it is also capable of monitoring human movement while harvesting biomechanical energies. This work provides a simple and environmental-friendly way to develop TENG for biomechanical energies harvesting and human motion monitoring.