Significantly Enhanced Performance of Triboelectric Nanogenerator by Incorporating BaTiO3 Nanoparticles in Poly(vinylidene fluoride) Film

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have received significant attention in recent years due to their renewable and sustainable properties. They convert mechanical energy into electric energy through contact and separation of two dissimilar materials. Many methods have been developed to improve the performance of TENGs, but little attention has been paid to use nanoparticles such as BaTiO3 (BTO) with high dielectric constant for enhancing the performance. This paper reports the achievement of significant performance enhancement of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/polyamide-6 (PA6) TENGs by incorporating BTO nanoparticles into the PVDF film. The PVDF-BTO/PA6 TENG with 10wt% BTO nanoparticles shows the best results with a peak voltage and charge density up to 900V and 34.4Cm(-2) at contact frequency of 5Hz when the contact force and the spacer distance are 180N and 100mm, which are much higher than 384V and 26.4Cm(-2) of the PVDF/PA6 TENG without incorporating BTO nanoparticles. Further increase in the BTO concentration deteriorates the output performance of the TENGs. Detailed investigations on the piezo-response and permittivity of the PVDF-BTO films show that the increased piezoelectric constant and permittivity are responsible for the significantly enhanced performance of the TENGs. A mathematical model has been developed to describe the output voltages of the TENG as a function of thickness of the PVDF-BTO film.