Free-standing triboelectric layer-based full fabric wearable nanogenerator for efficient mechanical energy harvesting

Harvesting mechanical energy from various human movements has great potential to sustainably power wearable electronics. Meanwhile, simple geometry design and high conversion efficiency could promote the extension of practical applications. Herein, we propose a free-standing triboelectric layer-based full fabric wearable triboelectric nanogenerator (FF-WTNG) to efficiently transfer the mechanical energy from human motion into electricity. The FF-WTNG consists of two different nylon and polyester fabrics on a textile substrate fixed at regular intervals, which can generate electricity by rubbing with a random active fabric layer without any limitation. Under two differently driven modes, that is, contact-separation and lateral sliding modes, the instantaneous output of FF-WTNG power can reach 0.37 and 2.1 mW, respectively. Furthermore, the continuous output current can be up to around 2.5 μA when the FF-WTNG is sewn on clothes. In general, this approach paves a solid way to efficiently convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and broadens the potential applications for powering wearable electronics.