Soft-soft contact TENG using nonlinear coupling galloping phenomenon for harvesting wind energy

Wind energy can be efficiently converted into electricity by the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which provides an effective solution for wind energy harvesting. Here, a novel soft-soft contact TENG based on nonlinear coupling galloping phenomenon (GS-TENG) was proposed. Soft-soft contact was achieved utilizing soft Ecoflex foam film and soft spring steel sheet. A microsphere structured surface was constructed on the Ecoflex film through foaming technology, which increases the surface charge density of the triboelectric materials effectively. Accordingly, the open-circuit voltage of triboelectric materials can reach up to 1700 V. Moreover, the GS-TENG is capable of self-protection under high wind speeds by actively reducing its amplitude and features an ultra-wide working bandwidth (2.292 m/s∼>7.8 m/s). When the wind speed reaches 4.74 m/s, the GS-TENG can generate up to 4.67 mW of output power. Notably, the GS-TENG’s flow-induced vibration dual mass system structure may pave the way for a new design paradigm in flow-induced vibration TENGs. GS-TENG can drive electronic clocks continuously and drive wireless temperature sensing systems successfully by wind energy harvesting. These results demonstrate that the GS-TENG we developed has high efficiency in wind energy harvesting, and this work greatly promotes the practical application of TENGs.