Enhancing the Performance of Textile Triboelectric Nanogenerators with Oblique Microrod Arrays for Wearable Energy Harvesting

The rapid development of wearable electronics urgently requires a wearable energy-harvesting technology that can convert mechanical energy from body movements into electricity. In this paper, a novel structure with an oblique microrod array is employed to fabricate a high-performance textile-based wearable triboelectric nanogenerator (WTNG). The contact area of WTNGs can be efficiently enhanced when the oblique poly(dimethylsiloxane) microrods are forced to bend uniformly and slide along one direction during the working condition. The oblique microrod structure enables the WTNG to generate a short-circuit current density and an open-circuit voltage reaching 3.24 μA/cm² and 1014.2 V, respectively. The maximum peak power density of a WTNG reached 211.7 μW/cm². Meanwhile, 48 red light-emitting diodes were simultaneously lit up by tapping a WTNG. Furthermore, the WTNG can be dressed on an elbow to continuously harvest energy from human motions as a sustainable power source. This work develops an efficient approach for enhancing the output performance of triboelectric nanogenerators and paves a promising way to power wearable electronics.