High-Performance Coaxial Counter-Rotating Triboelectric Nanogenerator with Lift–Drag Hybrid Blades for Wind Energy Harvesting

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 14; no. 7; p. 598
• Main Authors: Yan, Fei, Zhao, Junhao, Li, Fangming, Chu, Yiyao, Du, Hengxu, Sun, Minzheng, Xi, Ziyue, Du, Taili, Xu, Minyi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01.04.2024
• Subjects: Analysis; Blades; coaxial counter-rotating; Copper; distributed wireless sensor nodes; Drag; Electric generators; Electricity distribution; Energy; Energy harvesting; Energy utilization; Fluorescent lamps; Friction; Internet of Things; Low speed; Methods; Nanogenerators; Nanoparticles; Properties; Rotation; Sensors; Short circuit currents; Short-circuit current; Temperature sensors; triboelectric nanogenerator; wind energy harvesting; Wind power; Wind speed; Wireless sensor networks; China; triboelectric nanogenerator; Internet of Things; coaxial counter-rotating; wind energy harvesting; distributed wireless sensor nodes
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano14070598

Wind energy holds potential for in-situ powering large-scale distributed wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) in the Internet of Things (IoT) era. To achieve high performance in wind energy harvesting, a coaxial counter-rotating triboelectric nanogenerator with lift–drag hybrid blades, termed CCR-TENG, has been proposed. The CCR-TENG, which can work in non-contact and soft-contact modes, realizes low-speed wind energy harvesting through a combination of counter-clockwise rotating lift-type blades and clockwise rotating drag-type blades. Non-contact CCR-TENG realizes low-speed wind energy harvesting at wind speeds as low as 1 m/s. The output of a CCR-TENG, working in soft-contact mode, achieves 41% promotion with a maximum short-circuit current of 0.11 mA and a peak surface power density of 6.2 W/m2 with two TENGs connected in parallel. Furthermore, the power density per unit of wind speed achieves 746 mW/m3·s/m. Consequently, two fluorescent lamps were successfully illuminated and six temperature sensors were continuously lit by the CCR-TENG. The reported CCR-TENG significantly improves low-speed environmental wind energy utilization and demonstrates broad application prospects for in-situ power supply of distributed wireless transmission devices and sensors in the era of the IoT.