Hierarchically Nanostructured 1D Conductive Bundle Yarn-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Abstract

Wearable 2D textile platforms are the subject of intense focus to promote the creation of outstanding added value for textile-based applications in consumer electronics, energy harvesting, and storage. In particular, 2D textile-based energy harvesters from the living environment of human motions exhibit insufficient geometry deformation and low current density, thereby providing low power generation. Therefore, a unique starting point in this work is the use of 1D conductive bundle yarn (1D CBY) as a generic step for the development of 1D CBY-based energy harvesters through a weaving technology. The performance of 1D CBY-based triboelectric nanogenerators (1D CBY-TENGs) is addressed through contact electrification between the arrays of nanostructured 1D CBYs and 2D conductive fabric serving as tribomaterials. The manipulation of hierarchically nanostructured surfaces on the 1D CBYs by the hydrothermal process represents one of the crucial approaches of enhancing power generation through a large contact surface area. The 1D CBY-TENGs with a variation in the number of 1D CBY and stack configurations are also tested as a simple integration scheme, confirming the expected 1D CBY number and stack dependency in the output performance.