Large-scale production of the 3D warp knitted terry fabric triboelectric nanogenerators for motion monitoring and energy harvesting

In the coming era of intelligence, the textile-based triboelectric nanogenerator (T-TENG) is considered to be one of the most important development directions to achieve flexible wearable sensing and micro/nano energy harvesting. Among them, due to excellent physical proeprties of nano/micro fibrous structure, fluff/terry /fleece/brush/fur/pile/villus/velvet structure fabrics are gradually being applied to TENG. However, the research on the relationship between the triboelectric properties of TENG and the structural parameters of fluff, as well as the fabrication of large-scale fluff TENG are very lacking. Here, a 3D warp knitted terry fabric TENG (WKTF-TENG) is mass produced by a mature warp knitted technology. The triboelectric properties of contact-separation mode, lateral-sliding mode and single electrode mode are systematically investigated by changing the height and density of the pile loops of the fabric. This study demonstrates that terry fabric is an excellent triboelectric materials for it high output and good wear resistance, especially for ateral-sliding mode. The output of WKTF-TENG even increases with the increase of working cycles due to the more fluffy and uniform distribution of fibers on the surface of the fabric. What’s more, the triboelectric properties of terry fabrics also have a great relationship with the compression properties of the pile loops. As smart textile matertail, WKTF-TENG can be usde as self-powered motion monitoring sensor and energy harvesting device. The research on the output performance of WKTF-TENG through theoretical analysis and experimental testing may provides a promising direction for fluff fabric based TENG.