Environmental effects on nanogenerators

The desire for self-powered nanosystenns and wearable devices has driven wide investigation of the sustainable energy source. Harvesting energy from the ambient environment with nanogenerators becomes a viable solution with the development of low-power electronics. Different devices can face dramatically different working conditions, which may seriously restrict the application of those nanogenerators. In this review article we describe the most recent progress in the study of the environmental effect on the nanogenerator. While a variety of nanogenerators have been developed using piezoelectric, triboelectric, pyroelectric and thermoelectric effects, the most studied piezoelectric nanogenerator and triboelectric nanogenerator will be discussed in more detail. This review emphasizes the important effect of the temperature, humidity, and water. The other effects, such as UV radiation or adsorption of gas or solid material, are also presented for certain nanogenerators. In the end we share our views of the future research directions and the remaining challenges in this field. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.