Flexible Film-Discharge-Switch Assisted Universal Power Management System for the Four Operation Modes of Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are used to harvest high entropy energy. To optimize the energy harvesting, storage and effective utilization, a critical part is the power management system (PMS), which requires an ideal electrical switch as the key component. However, the current switch technologies cannot adapt and enhance the charging for the four operation modes of TENG simultaneously. Herein, a flexible film-discharge-switch (FDS), delivering an averaged charge-enhance factor over 100 under four operation modes of TENG, compared to directly charging a capacitor with conventional rectifier is reported. More specifically, the charge-enhancement factors of the FDS are 134.3, 64.7, 97.0, and 136.5 for the modes of contact-separation, lateral sliding, single-electrode, and freestanding triboelectric layer, respectively. Furthermore, the high flexibility, stability, simplicity, durability, and self-driven design of FDS endows the switch the possibility of versatile applications in the four modes of TENGs and flexible PMSs in wearable TENG applications. The successful demonstration in TENGs shows the great potential of the FDS in various fields such as micro-nano energy storage, distributed power supply, and self-powered systems.

Automated summary

A flexible film-discharge-switch (FDS) is developed as a key component in the power management system (PMS) of Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), enabling enhanced charging for all four operation modes of TENG. The FDS exhibits high flexibility, stability, and self-driven design, making it suitable for versatile applications.