A novel triboelectric nanogenerator based on carbon fiber reinforced composite lamina and as a self-powered displacement sensor

Abstract The small-scale energy harvesting and self-powered sensing are of essential importance for achieving an efficient, renewable, eco-friendly and sustainable power sources. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel, light-weight, and designable anisotropic stiffness triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and displacement sensor. The triboelectric pairs consist of the carbon fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) lamina and commercial office paper. The CFRC utilized as triboelectric material is mainly because of its merits embracing the high modulus, high specific strength, multifunctional characteristics of designable stiffness and absence of mechanical property loss and paper is adopted mostly on account of low-cost, commonly available, green and disposable. For the proposed device, the carbon fibers built in the CFRC and another copper foil on paper firstly serve as conductive electrodes to explore the mechanism and performance after identifying a triboelectric sequence of the CFRC lamina and paper. With a merit of designable anisotropic stiffness by changing the orientations of fibers, the CFRC board essentially has a three-layer structure and acts as the supporting structure. The estimated peak output of open circuit voltage (Voc) and short circuit current (Isc) for proposed TENG by finger motion can reach 150 V and 2.5 μA respectively. The fabricated TENG with a steady output and high power density can directly light up twenty-five light-emitting diodes (LEDs) of 3.4 V working voltage. Subsequently, two pieces of CFRC boards are combined with paper gratings to develop a novel displacement sensor, where a self-powered function is achieved and no additional conductive electrodes of accessory are incorporated besides the carbon fibers. The advantage of relatively high-power outcomes and rapid fabrication from the thin profile and flexible harvester for the proposed TENG and self-powered displacement sensor offers a feasible CFRC-based power solution for microelectronics and sensors and can be used to future energy harvesting and structural health monitoring (SHM).