Performance-enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator using polyimide aerogel for energy harvesting and sensing

Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG) is a novel technology to convert mechanical energy into electricity for energy harvesting and sensing applications. Therefore, developing high performance TENG systems for practical applications is a very important and attractive topic. This study presents an efficient and extra light-weight TENG device using polyimide aerogel as the main electricity generation component. The small size porosity of the selected material will significantly change the effective dielectric thickness as well as the contact area resulting in the improvement of the TENG electrical output. The performance of proposed porous system in comparison with a system with compressed polyimide layer is evaluated to show the advantage of used aerogel. In addition, the electrical outputs of the enhanced device under different mechanical and electrical conditions are studied. Through the material fabrication and implementation, the proposed TENG can be successfully employed to boost the performance of various TENG-based energy harvesters and self-powered sensors.