Omnidirectional water wave energy harvesting by a spherical triboelectric nanogenerator with sliced-pizza-shaped electrodes
Hongxin Hong, Tianle Chen, Jianjun Yang, Yiwen Hu, Jinteng Hu, Dongsheng Li, Farong Liu, Liqiang Liu, Hao Wu
Abstract
Ocean waves contain abundant renewable kinetic energy, but harnessing their power is difficult due to their low frequency and erratic nature. Here, we report a spherical triboelectric nanogenerator featuring multilayer "sliced-pizza-shaped" electrodes (SP-TENG) to efficiently harness omnidirectional wave energy. Unlike conventional TENGs that either convert kinetic motion from a single direction or compromise energy-harvesting efficiency to capture multi-directional wave energy, our SP-TENG not only effectively harnesses multi-directional wave energy but also maximizes electric output by fully utilizing the device's internal space. Moreover, using polypropylene fur as a tribo-material further increases the charge output by enhancing inter-material contact efficiency. The SP-TENG effectively captures kinetic energy from all directions, achieving a peak power density of 13 W/m 3 and charge density of 2.4 mC/m 3 at 0.6 Hz frequency. This study presents a practical and efficient approach for harvesting high-entropy blue energy on a large scale.