Improved performance of ferroelectric nanocomposite flexible film based triboelectric nanogenerator by controlling surface morphology, polarizability, and hydrophobicity

In recent years, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been attracting lots of attention for harvesting electrical energy from mechanical energy, because of its simplicity in designing, cost-effectiveness, and high output power. In the present trend, the performance of TENG is improved mainly by surface modification using complex techniques. In the present work, we have demonstrated enhanced triboelectrification between polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) by incorporating ZnO nanorods into PVDF polymer. The fabricated ZnO-PVDF/PTFE based TENG showed 21% enhanced output voltage and 60% enhanced short-circuit current in comparison to PVDF/PTFE based TENG with an instantaneous output power density of ∼10.6 μW/cm2. The increase in triboelectrification comes not only from the enhancement in β-phase content, which leads to increase polarizability, but also from the enhancement in surface roughness, hydrophobicity, and a decrease in the work function of PVDF after incorporating ZnO nanorods.