A Dual-Output Rectifier-Based Self-Powered Interface Circuit for Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) offer a cost-effective solution for harvesting energy in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, their practical application is limited due to extremely high output voltage and low intrinsic capacitance, alongside the non-self-powered nature of current interface circuits and low transfer efficiency resulting from output voltage asymmetry. Addressing these issues, this letter introduces a dual-output rectifier (DOR)-based interface circuit, innovatively designed to rectify TENG output into two distinct voltage magnitudes, optimizing for energy harvesting and switching generation. The experimental results validate our approach, showing gains of 2.75 and 2.34 times in terms of maximum output power over a full-wave rectifier (FWR)-based design at 2 Hz and 3 Hz, respectively. Furthermore, under identical frequency and load conditions (1MΩ at 2 and 3Hz), the output gains reached 152 and 160 times that of the FWR. Our approach brings about a significant advancement in TENG integration for low-frequency and low-load IoT devices. This paper is accompanied by two videos demonstrating the charge response of 1MΩ load at 2Hz and 3Hz, respectively.