| Sep 18, 2013 |
Triboelectric nanogenerator harvests wind energy
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(Nanowerk News) Researchers at Georgia Tech and the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, led by Xiaonan Wen and Zhong Lin Wang, report a triboelectric effect based wind energy harvester as a sustainable power source and a self-powered wind vector sensor system for wind speed and direction detection ("Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Harvesting Wind Energy and as Self-Powered Wind Vector Sensor System").
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The nanogenerator consists of an fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) film and two aluminum foils connected with a ground through an external load. Its mechanism is based on the charge transfer between the aluminum electrode and the ground by utilizing the wind-induced vibration of the FEP film between the two aluminum electrodes.
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| Photographs show that the triboelectric nanogenerato was used to harvest the human mouth blowing induced wind energy to drive 10 LEDs and an exit sign. (©ACS)
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The integrated triboelectric nanogenerator produces an output voltage up to 100 V, an output current of 1.6 µA, and an output power of 0.16mW under a load of 100 MΩ, which can be used to light up tens of commercial LEDs.
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The researchers also demonstrate an additional double-electrode-based triboelectric nanogenerator to harvest wind energy from a human blowing, and the produced electricity is enough to power an exit sign.
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Moreover, the nanogenerators have been utilized to design a self-powered wind vector sensor system for detecting the wind speed and direction. The detection sensitivity of the wind speed is about 0.09 µA/(m/s). The wind direction can be determined by the analysis of the real-time measured output voltage signals as a mapping image.
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This invention may push forward a significant step toward the practical applications of wind energy harvesting techniques and self-powered sensor systems.
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