Influence of Various Parameters on the Triboelectric Generation of Bulk Materials

In this paper we report the study of mechanical energy harvesting of ambient energy based on triboelectric effect. We choose the bulk form of poly-tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as electronegative (E-) material and human hand and plywood as the electropositive (E+) materials, respectively making a single electrode based triboelectric generator (TEG). The E+ and E- material were rubbed together to produce a voltage output, which was measured by using a sensitive electrometer. This investigation was carried out for different surface morphology, surface areas of contact, thickness and types of electrode contacts and rubbing frequency. It was observed that sufficient voltage and charge generation was achieved to power low energy devices like LED bulbs, with the highest voltage generation of ~6.2 V for rectangular PTFE sheet, having one surface coated with a thin film of copper for making electrode and other one is made rough using sandpaper, as the E- material and plywood as the E+ material. We observed that the voltage output is influenced by the surface morphology, type of E+ material for the same E- material, frequency of rubbing strokes and frictional area of contact.