Liquid-Filling Polydimethylsiloxane Composites with Enhanced Triboelectric Performance for Flexible Nanogenerators

Material functionalization of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) plays an important role in TENG's electric performance for sustainable energy harvesting. In this work, a method for improving polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites triboelectric performance has been proposed, via filling high dielectric constant liquid (instead of solids) into PDMS matrix. The improvement is attributed to the high dielectric constant liquid in PDMS matrix that reduced the effective thickness of PDMS and increased the dielectric constant of PDMS composite synchronously. At 50% filling ratio (PDMS-HD50), the triboelectric performance exhibits an enhancement of 4.5-fold in output voltage and 3.9-fold in output current as compared to pure PDMS. The results, besides higher transparency, are superior to the results from traditional solid dielectric constant doping materials like BaTiO(3)nanoparticle in PDMS. This work has proved potentials of dielectric liquid filling materials in fabricating TENGs and could be a guidance for exploring new liquid filling materials.