Highly dispersed porous polydimethylsiloxane for boosting power-generating performance of triboelectric nanogenerators

Abstract One of the common approaches in improving the output performance of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) is to increase triboelectric charge density by enlarging the surface area of triboelectric materials. Herein, highly porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) introduced by nanograss silicon mold is developed to improve the output performance of PDMS-based TENGs in contact-separation mode. With an area of 100 cm2, the power generating performance of porous PDMS-based TENG (S1) is greatly enhanced and the maximum voltage of 3200 V and current of 94 μA are obtained. It also delivers a maximum power density of 0.58 W m−2 at a load resistance of 10 MΩ, offering almost three times power improvement compared with the TENGs with micro-pillar (S2) and flat (S3) PDMS surfaces. The boosting power-generating performance is mainly attributed to an increase surface roughness and additional triboelectric charges induced on the surfaces of the inner pores. Additionally, the S1 TENG is successfully used as a power source to directly drive 400 series-connected light emitting diodes (LEDs) to high brightness. This developed TENG also provides enough energy for 10 μF capacitor to power a wireless transmitter within 10 s. This work presents a new porous patterned PDMS-based TENG, which not only can be readily fabricated but also considerably delivers the high output performance toward the realization of self-powered and sustainable electronic devices.