Comparative study on the contact-separation mode triboelectric nanogenerator

Among the available energy harvesters, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are the most popular technologies for scavenging mechanical energy from ambient sources and converting them into electrical energy. Out of four working modes of a TENG, contact-separation (CS) mode is mostly used in practical applications. A typical CS mode TENG consists of the following components: two dielectric layers for friction, two electrodes for current conduction and a connected load. There are several factors which can affect the output performance of a TENG. Among different factors, dielectric layer's thickness and its relative constant can significantly influence the electrical output of a TENG. In addition, surface structure of the dielectric layers in a TENG has also a great impact on its electrical output. Therefore, this study considers these three aspects and vary them to observe the changes in electric potential distribution between two dielectric layers. A comparative study has been conducted for analysing four intrinsic electrical output of the TENG, including the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit charge, capacitance, and energy. In case of investigating dielectric thickness, thin dielectric film based TENG shows greater voltage, charge and energy compared to the thick one. During investigation of relative dielectric constant, the best electrical output is obtained from higher dielectric constant-based electronegative film in TENG. Regarding surface structures, patterned film based TENG exhibits enhanced output compared to non-patterned one. This study considers COMSOL Multiphysics software for all modeling and simulations of the TENG. With the help of this software the design, material selection and stationary study of the TENG has been performed. Overall, this work can be an ideal reference to the researchers which can help them to design a high performance based TENG.