Ultrahigh Performance, Serially Stackable, Breeze Driven Triboelectric Generator via Ambient Air Ionizing Channel

Currently, wind energy harvesting is in the limelight. However, with the existing electromagnetic wind generators, it is difficult to harvest multifariously-wasted breezes. To harvest energy from winds at a wide range of speeds, wind-driven triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are studied. However, a critical limitation of general wind-driven TENGs is that their power output is low. Therefore, an innovative strategy is necessary to generate high output power even from breeze. Herein, an approach to test a charge-polarization-based flutter-driven TENG (CPF-TENG) with ambient air ionizing channel (AAIC) is reported. Owing to AAIC, the device generates peak voltage and current outputs of 2000 V and 4 A, respectively. Moreover, because the proposed CPF-TENG can generate power from breeze, it can be stacked in series to completely harvest wind energy. The stacked CPF-TENG is demonstrated to operate 3000 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and 12 hygrometers, separately, and produce hydrogen at a rate of 342.3 µL h−1 with the electrolysis cell.