Nano Energy (2016) 19, 48–57

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/nanoenergy

RAPID COMMUNICATION

High output polypropylene nanowire array

triboelectric nanogenerator through surface
structural control and chemical modification
Yange Fenga,b, Youbin Zhenga,c, Shuanhong Maa,b, Daoai Wanga,n,
Feng Zhoua, Weimin Liua,n

a
State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
b
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
c
Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou
University, Lanzhou 730000, China

Received 20 September 2015; received in revised form 12 November 2015; accepted 14 November 2015
Available online 24 November 2015

KEYWORDS Abstract
Polypropylene; We report a new method to fabricate a polypropylene (PP) nanowire array based triboelectric
Nanowire; nanogenerator (TENG) with high output through structural control and surface functionalization for
Surface modification; harvesting friction mechanical energy. Compared with the smooth PP film based TENG, the short
Triboelectric nano- circuit current (Isc) and open circuit voltage (Voc) of the PP nanowire based TENGs with the nanowire
generator;
diameter of about 100 nm and length of about 14 μm increase by more than 4 times. More
Mechanical energy
importantly, after surface functionalization with a modifier of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyltrichlor-
harvesting
osilane, the output of the PP nanowire based TENG is further increased to a maximum Voc of 1900 V
and a short circuit current density of 19 mA/m2, increased by more than 100 times than that of the
flat PP film based TENG. This TENG can light up 372 commercial LEDs. Furthermore, a self-powered
temperature sensor is designed, which shows great potential application in daily life. By taking this
simple and effective surface modification strategy, we believe various materials could be used for
energy harvesting by TENGs and other devices with high performance.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

n
Corresponding authors. Tel.: +86 931 4968169.
E-mail addresses: wangda@licp.cas.cn (D. Wang), wmliu@licp.cas.cn (W. Liu).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2015.11.017
2211-2855/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
High output polypropylene nanowire array triboelectric nanogenerator
Introduction
Harvesting energy from ambient environment has always been a
hot issue and a possible solution against the energy crisis.
Recently, a new energy harvesting device of triboelectric
nanogenerators (TENGs) has attracted more and more attention
owing to its simple design, low cost, reliable robustness,
environmentally friendliness and the abundant friction energy
sources [1–4]. Ever since the first triboelectric nanogenerator
was fabricated in 2012, it has experienced a great development
either in the ambient energy harvesting styles or in its output
power density [5,6]. Various dissipative energies in nature and
human’s life, for instance, water energy [7], wind energy [8,9],
mechanical energy generated through body movement and
some other mechanical movements [10,11], have been col-
lected and utilized by the simple and smart TENG device, which
consists of only two friction layers with opposite polarity, with
one easy to gain electrons and the other easy to lose electrons
during the course of friction [12–14]. Generally, the structure
and the composition of the friction materials are the key
factors which directly influence the output of the TENG.
Especially, the utilization of micro- and nanostructured friction
pair with large and effective contact area resulted in the leap-
forward development of energy harvesting from the traditional
friction electrification to TENG [15]. However, the low output
limited by the friction materials still hinders the practical
application of TENGs.
To achieve high output, it is very important to design a
flexible and wear resistant nanostructure on the surface of the
friction pairs of TENG, with large friction contact surface area
to generate more triboelectric charges and weak adhesion for
separation to generate more inductive charges. These types of
flexible and functional nanostructures can be found in nature,
e.g. the gecko feet which contains numerous keratinous setae
with rather complex hierarchy at the micro- and nano-scale to
generate reversible adhesive and friction force and enable
these animals to efficiently climb on solid surfaces [16,17].
These nanowires-like keratinous setae can provide large real
contact areas with the substrate [16,18,19], which could be
imitated and utilized in the TENG device. Meanwhile, as a
normal thermoplastic resin, polypropylene (PP) has been widely
used as an appropriate material to fabricate gecko feet setae-
like nanowires, owing to the similar elasticity moduli of PP and
gecko feet for bionic design [20–22]. While there were few
reports about its electric performance of PP because of its low
negativity in the triboelectric series which is not suitable to
directly use as TENG friction material. To solve this issue, a new
strategy to not only produce nanowire array structure but also
functionalize the nanowires for TENG use is urgently required.
Herein, a gecko feet setae-like PP nanowire material was
designed as the TENG friction material, and the surface
composition and triboelectric polarity of PP nanowire was
optimized by the post surface chemical modification for high
output performance. To prepare the nanowire array structure,
the thin and flat PP film was pressed into porous anodic
aluminum oxide template to fabricate PP nanowire above the
Vicat softening temperature of PP (150 1C) via a facile hot
processing technique. To adjust the surface composition and
the triboelectric polarity of PP nanowire, fluorinated com-
pounds were introduced by simple chemical vapor deposition
[23] and radical polymerization with chemical bond anchoring.
49
We choose PP as the friction material not only because of its
flexibility and suitable elasticity moduli for bionic design, but
also its work stability, nontoxic and inexpensive. The influence
of nanowire structure and the surface composition on the
output of TENG were studied in detail, obtaining a maximum
open-circuit voltage of 1900 V and the short circuit current
density of 19 mA/m2, which can instantaneously light up 372
commercial LEDs. This study provide an important strategy for
enhancing TENG’s output performance through structural con-
trol and surface chemical modification.
Experimental section
Materials
Aluminum sheet (purity 99.999%, thickness 0.3 mm, Zhongnuo
Advanced Material (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.), polypropy-
lene film (industrial grade, 50 um), 3-Hydroxytyramine hydro-
chloride (dopamine
HCl, Aldrich), methacryloyl chloride (Alfa
Aesar), 2,2,3,4,4,4-Hexafluorobutyl methacrylate (HFBMA, Alfa
Aesar), azodiisobutyronitrile (AIBN, Aldrich), 1H,1H,2H,2H-Per-
fluorooctyltrichlorosilane (PFTS, Aldrich) were used as received.
Other solvents were purchased from Tianjin Chemical Reagents
Corp. and used without further purification.
Fabrication of the AAO templates
The AAO templates were prepared as described in the litera-
tures [24–26]. Firstly, the aluminum sheet was cleaned by
acetone in ultrasonic cleaner for two hours to remove the
lipids on the surface and soaked in NaOH solution (0.1 M) for
one minute to remove the oxide layer. Al sheet was then
polished through an electrochemical method in perchloric acid
and ethanol mixture for 10 min with a voltage of 15 V. Finally, a
two-step anodization method was used to prepare the AAO
template in 0.3 M oxalic acid with a voltage of 60 V, and the
first oxidation process lasted for 2 h while the second anodic
oxidation time varied from 20 min to 2 h to obtain AAO
templates with the lengths from 2–20 mm. Last, after etching
in 5 vol% H3PO4 solution for 3–10 min to enlarge the pore size,
the AAO templates with different pore size were obtained.
Fabrication of PP nanowire array
The PP nanowire array friction layers were prepared by a
simplified hot processing technique using porous AAO as
template, as shown in Figure 1a. Typically, a flat PP film with
the thickness of 50 um and an AAO template material with
different thickness were placed in the middle of two glass
plates, and then moved to an oven at 200 1C by applying a load
of 2 N/cm2 onto the top glass plate. After maintaining the
temperature at 200 1C for 1 h and cooling down without
releasing the load, the prepared PP nanowire-AAO composite
was put into a hot NaOH solution (1.0 M) at 50 1C for 3 h to
remove the AAO template. Last, after dissolving the AAO
template, the PP nanowire arrays with different length were
obtained.
50 Y. Feng et al.

Figure 1 (a) Schematic depiction of the fabrication process of PP nanowires prepared by hot processing technique and post surface
modification with fluorinated compounds. (b) Schematic diagram and photo of PP nanowire based TENG.

Surface chemical modification of PP nanowires

To synthesize the dopamine based fluorinated polymer, the

chemical intermediate of N-(3, 4-dihydroxyphenethyl)
methacrylamide (DOPAMA) was firstly prepared with 3-
Hydroxytyramine hydrochloride and methacryloyl chloride
as described in our previous work [27–29]. Then the
dopamine based fluorinated polymer was synthesized by
a radical polymerization reaction as follow: HFBMA (2.50 g,
10 mmol), DOPAMA (220 mg, 1 mmol), and AIBN (1.64 mg,
0.01 mmol) were dissolved in 5 mL dimethyl formamide.
The solution was heated to 70 1C and reacted for 24 h
under nitrogen protection. Then the precipitation was
collected by filtering when the reaction mixture was
cooled to room temperature. The obtained product was
further purified by repeated washings with methanol and
dried under reduced pressure to obtain the dopamine
based fluorinated polymer of poly(2,2,3,4,4,4-hexafluoro-
butyl-5-((3,4-dihydroxyphenethyl)amino)-2,2,4,4-tetra-
methyl-5-oxopentanoate)fluoropolymer (Pdop-F). Figure 2 Proposed mechanism of PP nanowire and Al film based
To obtain the Pdop-F surface functionalized PP materials, TENG: (a) Original state that the two surfaces is completely separated
500 mg Pdop-F was firstly dissolved in 100 ml methanol to with each other. (b) Moving to fully contacted, and triboelectric
obtain a homogeneous solution. Then, a flat PP film or PP charges are generated on PP and Al surfaces. (c) Releasing and
nanowire film was pretreated with oxygen plasma for 1 min and reaching an electrical equilibrium, the current flows from the bottom
immersed into the as-prepared Pdop-F solution for 24 h at room electrode to the top electrode. (d) Fully separated and reaches an
temperature. Last, the PP films were taken out and washed electrical equilibrium, no current flows. (e) Pressing to fully con-
with deionized water, and dried at 80 1C in oven for 2 h to tacted, current flows from the top electrode to the bottom electrode.
obtain the Pdop-F modified PP friction materials.
To modify the PP films with 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-Perfluorooctyl
trichlorosilane (PFTS), the oxygen plasma treated PP substr Fabrication of TENGs
ates with flat or nanowire structure were put in a sealed
container by dropping 20 ml PFTS and then placed in an oven at A typical structure of PP nanowire based TENG and the
80 1C for 4 h. optical photograph are schematically shown in Figure 1b.
High output polypropylene nanowire array triboelectric nanogenerator 51

Figure 3 FESEM images of PP nanowires of (a) Top view and cross-sectional with lengths of (b) 2.4 μm, (c) 4.0 μm, (d) 6.2 μm,
(e) 14 μm, (f) 20 μm.

Figure 4 The performance of PP based TENGs with different nanowire length from 0 to 20 mm. (a) Short circuit current, (b) short
circuit current density, (c) open circuit voltage, and (d) comparation by histogram of Isc and Voc of the PP based TENG with different
nanowire length.

To simplify and study of the electrostatic generation
process, a piece of aluminum foil (16 cm2) was chosen as
the matched friction and electrode material with PP film.
First, a copper foil tape was firstly stuck onto the backside
of PP nanowire film layer (16 cm2), and then a Cu lead was
stuck onto the copper tape surface as a lead wire. Then,
both of the PP film and Al electrode were stuck onto a piece
of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheet and sealed with a
PET tape to form an arch structure to make it able to
automatically restore without external force after pressing.
52 Y. Feng et al.

Figure 5 Schematic diagram of synthesis of Pdop-F (a) and PFTS (b) on the surface of PP nanowire.

Figure 6 (a) XPS spectrum of PP friction layer before and after surface functionalization. Water contact angle on (b) flat PP film,
(c) PP nanowire film, (d) Pdop-F modified nanostructure PP nanowire, and (e) PFTS modified nanostructure PP nanowire.

Last, the TENGs were moved to a oven and dried at 80 1C for was collected through LabVIEW Base Development System
2 h to dry the TENG thoroughly before the output (National Instruments).
measurements.

Characterization 3. Result and discussion

The morphologies and composition of PP nanowire before
and after chemical modification were tested on a field
emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM, JSM-6701F,
JEOL Inc., Japan) and an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
(XPS, ESCALAB 250xi). Contact angle (CA) was tested via
DSA-100 optical contact angle meter (Kruss Company, Ltd.,
Germany) at ambient temperature (20 1C). The short circuit
current (Isc) and open circuit voltage (Voc) were tested via
SR570 Low Noise Current Preamplifier (Stanford Research
Systems) and NI-PCI6259 (National Instruments), the data
Figure 1a shows the schematic illustration of the fabrication
process of PP nanowire and its surface functionization by
chemical modification method. First, the AAO templates are
prepared by a two-step anodization on pure Al substrate in
oxalic acid solution. Then, the PP nanowire arrays are
fabricated by a hot processing technique using AAO as hard
template. By pressing the PP film into the AAO pores at a
high temperature, the PP nanowire/AAO coaxial nanoarray
structure is formed. After removing the AAO template in a
hot NaOH solution, the PP nanowire array is obtained. Last,
High output polypropylene nanowire array triboelectric nanogenerator 53

Figure 7 The performance of PP based TENGs before and after surface chemical modification with Pdop-F and PFTS. (a) Short-
circuit current, (b) short circuit current density, (c) open circuit voltage, and (d) charge density. Photographs of PFTS modified PP
nanowire based TENG for (e) pressing and (f) releasing to can instantaneously light up 372 LEDs.

Figure 8 (a) Schematic images of self-powered temperature sensor, (b) linear paragraph of voltage signals at different
temperature, (c) voltage obtained under different temperature.

the PP nanowire arrays are modified with fluorinated
compounds to obtain the fluoro-terminated PP nanowire
materials, which are used as the friction layers of TENGs.
The contact electrification process between PP nanowire
and Al film and the working mechanism of PP-Al based TENG
are illustrated in Figure 2. Generally, the generation of
electric charge of TENG is attributed to the result of the
coupling effect of contact charging and electrostatic induc-
tion during the contact or friction process [13,14]. While
two materials with different triboelectric polarities come
into mechanical contact, charges occur at their surfaces.
When they are separated, electrostatic potential difference
between the two materials results in the current flowing
through external circuit. As shown in Figure 2a, before PP
54
contacting with Al, no charge transfer occurred. When the
PP nanowires and Al electrode are pressed to contact, the
positive charges generate on Al foil and the negative
charges generate on PP surface (Figure 2b) [30]. Due to
the electrostatic induction effect, the conducting layer of
Cu tape generates the opposite charges to the PP friction
layer, resulting in the formation of a current flows from Al
electrode to Cu electrode during the releasing process
(Figure 2c). Once the charges reach the balance state, no
current flows in the circuit (Figure 2d). Similarly, during the
pressing process, a reverse current is detected from Cu
electrode to Al electrode (Figure 2e). Thus, coupling the
contact electrification with electrostatic induction effects,
the alternative electricity generates while the TENG experi-
ences a pressing-releasing process.
Enhancing the output of TENG by structural control
The morphology and nanostructure of the friction electrode
play key roles in the output of TENG. For example,
compared with the smooth surface, the nanowire structure
can greatly enhance the Voc and Isc of TENG [31,32], while
there are still the optimized size and morphology of the
nanowire. PP nanowire arrays with different length and
diameter were designed on the surface of the PP friction
material, which can be demonstrated by the FESEM images
of the top and cross-sectional views as shown in Figure 3 and
Figure S1 in the supporting information. The PP nanowires
with different lengths were fabricated via controlling the
thickness of the AAO template, which can be controlled by
adjusting the Al anodization time from 20 min to 2 h. The
diameter of PP nanowire is controlled by the pore size of
the AAO template, which can be adjusted by controlling the
pore widening time in 5 wt% H3PO4 from 3 to 10 min (Figure
S1a–d). After the same hot pressing process, the PP nano-
wires with different length and diameter were prepare by
using the AAO templates with different thickness and pore
size. Figure 3a–f show the top view and the cross-sectional
views of the PP nanowire with the diameter of 100 nm and
the length from 2.4 to 20 μm, and Figure S1e–i show the of
PP nanowire with differnert diameter 80–135 nm. According
to these images, the PP film has uniform nanowire array
structure in a large area, and the nanowires have smooth
surface and uniform diameter from top to bottoms, which is
beneficial to produce triboelectricity.
We measured the electrical output of the PP based TENG
through the contact electrification between the PP nanowire
array friction layer and Al electrode, as shown in Figure 1b and
Figure 4. The TENG was mechanically triggered by a linear
motor that provides dynamic impact with controlled force at a
frequency of 5 Hz. All of these PP films with or without nanowire
structures were assembled with Al films to fabricate TENGs in
the same condition. To proceed more detailed study about these
TENGs based on PP nanowires with different length, Voc and Isc
were tested separately and the results were shown in Figure 4.
From the working principle, the charges transferred between Al
electrode and Cu tape electrode in the external circuit during
the contact and separation process instantaneously generated
positive and negative currents. Accordingly, an alternative Voc
appeared during the pressing-releasing process of the TENGs. It
can be seen from Figure 4 that the flat PP film based TENG has
Y. Feng et al.
the lowest output of both short circuit current and open circuit
voltage, which is in consistent with the fact that nanostructure
is a key factor that greatly influences the output value of TENG.
Meanwhile, the length of the PP nanowire has importance
influence on the electric output. From Figure 4a–c, both short
circuit current and open circuit voltage firstly increases and
reaches the largest value at 14 μm, and then decreases after
that point. This tendency is much more clearly and the tendency
of open-circuit voltage is consistent with short circuit current as
shown in Figure 4d. The peak values of the open-circuit voltage
and the short circuit current can reach 157 V and 1.36 μA with
the PP nanowire length of 14 μm, corresponding to a current
density of 0.85 mA/m2 (Figure 4b) and charge density of 3.3 μC/
m2 (Figure 7d). Compared with the flat PP film based TENG, the
output of PP nanowire based TENG is enhanced by more than
four times. The diameter of the PP nanowire can also influence
the electric output of the TENGs as shown in Figure S2. The
assembled TENGs reach the peak values with the PP diameter of
100 nm. Therefore, the optimal length and diameter of PP
nanowire for TENGs are 14 μm and 100 nm, indicating an
important designing principle of triboelectric elecreode for
enhancing TENG’s output performance by structural control.
According to Figure S1, the hole diameter become lager with
longer etching time. The nanowires with 80 nm diameter
stacked together which result in a small nanowires density
while the nanowires density of 135 nm diameter is too big,
which will result in a lower contact area. Both of the two has a
lower output due to the nanowires are not thoroughly con-
tacted. The morphology of 100 nm and 120 nm is similar but the
nanowires of 100 nm diameter has a tilt angle, which can lead
to a larger output according to the paper published before.
[33]. For the length, if the length of PP nanowires is too short,
the contact area will not be big enough to obtain good output.
If the nanowires are too long, once the nanowires are pressed
to bent they may not be able to recovery to the original state
due to permanent deformation at the root. Thus their con-
tribution to friction is very limited. If the nanowires have
optimal length, they are able to revert to original orientation
when bent due to bending stiffness, which is expected to
provide addition friction area to obtain the biggest output [34].
Enhancing the output of TENG by surface chemical
modification
The surface composition of the friction material is another
key factor to influence the performance of TENG. The
greater difference of the triboelectric polarity of the
friction materials, the higher output of the TENGs. It has
been proven that fluoropolymer, for instance, polytetra-
fluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)
are two of the most suitable triboelectric negative friction
materials for TENG till now, since fluorine is the most
electronegative element of all. However, the high cost
and rare types usually restrict the application of fluorinated
composite materials in TENG. Is there a simple and low cost
method to change the triboelectric polarity of the normal
friction material for TENG? For this, we introduced a surface
chemical modification method to adjust the surface compo-
sition of friction material for TENG. The modifiers are
fluorine-containing polymer and small molecule which can
adjust the surface triboelectric polarity to increase the
High output polypropylene nanowire array triboelectric nanogenerator
TENG output. Herein, Pdop-F and PFTS were selected as the
surface modifiers to functionalize the PP nanowires and the
flat PP films. The synthesis of Pdop-F was carried out as
described in our previous work [27–29] and the molecular
structure and preparation process are shown in Figure 5a.
Particularly, the prepared Pdop-F molecule has a phenolic
hydroxyl group which can absorb tightly on the surface of PP
nanowire by the intermolecular forces, such as hydrogen-
bond interaction. For the modification with PFTS, we chose
a simple and modified physical vapor deposition method
which can form a thin and uniform PFTS layer on the surface
of PP nanowires. The PFTS molecule can form a chemical
bond with the surface of PP nanowires, resulting in the good
stability of the composite friction layer (Figure 5b).
We verified the surface composition of the functionalized
PP by XPS analysis. As shown in Figure 6a, there is no F1s
peak in the spectrum of the as-prepared flat and nanos-
tructured PP film. While after modification with Pdop-F and
PFTS, strong F1s signals appear. The PFTS modified samples
have obviously stronger F1s signal, indicating more fluoride
on the surface of PP from the chemical bond of PFTS.
Another reason could be the fluorine content in PFTS
(48.6 wt%) is much higher than Pdop-F(23.8 wt%). Moreover,
the nanowire structure on the surface of PP could also
enlarge the surface area to self-assemble more chemical
molecule than the flat PP film, which could be also proved
by the XPS result in Figure 6a. The water contact angle
measurement was also used to verify the functionalized PP
surfaces. As shown in Figure 6b, when a water droplet
dropped on the flat PP surface, a small contact angle of
about 921 was observed. After the fabrication of PP
nanowire, the water contact angle increased to 1281,
indicating the nanostructure is an important factor to
create hydrophobic or super hydrophobic surface. After
modification with Pdop-F and PFTS, the water contact angle
was further increased to 1421 and 1551, owing to the
contribution of nonpolar (-CF3) end groups in the modifiers
with low surface energy. The surface modification has little
impact on surface morphology of PP nanowires, which could
be demonstrated by the FESEM images in Figure S3.
Figure 7 shows the performance of the flat PP and PP
nanowire based TENGs before and after modification with
Pdop-F and PFTS. Excitingly, after the surface functionalization,
the output of Isc and Voc have largely increase, either the PP
nanowire based TENG or the flat PP film based TENG. And the
output performance has an obvious tendency that the PP
nanowire based TENGs have higher output values than that of
flat PP film based TENGs, indicating the importance of
structural design. Moreover, the PTFS modified TENGs exhibit
higher output performance contrast to Pdop-F modified ones,
which is consistent with the fluorine content proved by XPS
results in Figure 6a. Combining the nanostructure and chemical
modification, the PTFS modified PP nanowire based TENG got
the highest output due to the synergy of the two effect factors.
The PP nanowire structure increases the frictional contact area,
and the post chemical modification with PFTS improves the
triboelectric polarity of PP nanomaterial, resulting the high
output performance of TENG. The open circuit voltage of PFTS
modified PP nanowire based TENG reaches the highest Voc of
1900 V and the Isc of 30 μA, corresponding to the current density
of 19 mA/m2 and charge density of 65 μC/m2 (Figure 7d). The Isc
increased by more than 100 times than that of the flat PP based
55
TENG, and 25 time than that of PP nanowire based TENG
without PTFS modification. The PFTS modified PP nanowire
based TENG can instantaneously light up 372 commercial LEDs
as shown in Figure 7(e,f) and the supplementary video. There-
fore, the surface modification of fluoropolymers or fluorochem-
icals can significantly enhance the output performance of
TENGs. Fluoropolymer or fluorochemicals with higher fluorine
content will generate a higher output. Moreover, the chemical
modification and nanostructure have a synergistic effect for
enhancing the output performance of TENGs. A durability test
has also been proceeded under 5 Hz contact frequency with the
TENG continuously working for about 37,000 recycles. The
result is shown in Figure S4. The nanowire appears little wear
but the output the Isc keeps a steady state and hardly decreases
during the test. It can be concluded that the PFTS modified
TENG can work for a long time without the output performance
having a significant decrease. The high effective and simple
surface modification strategy provides a new way to change
some normal nonpolar materials into suitable friction materials
for TENG use.
Supplementary material related to this article can be
found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2015.
11.017.
Application on self-powered temperature sensor
It is very important to give an actual application rather than
merely demonstration of LEDs since it is worthy if TENGs can
be utilized in daily life. Herein, we design a simple tempera-
ture sensor powered by our TENG. The schematic image is
shown in Figure 8a. It can be seen from the image that a
negative temperature coefficient(NTC) resistor is in series
with TENG. In this system, the voltage ranges with the
change of temperature from room temperature (23 1C) to
100 1C and the results are shown in Figure 8(b,c). It can be
concluded from the image that the sensor is sensitive from
room temperature to 100 1C. Moreover, it seems that the line
presents a liner relationship and the linear formula is fitted
and given in Figure 8b. As a result, this temperature sensor is
more suitable for temperature from room temperature to
100 1C. It indicates that the FTFS functionalized PP TENG has
a great application prospect in practical use.
Conclusions
In summary, we have demonstrated a new way to fabricate PP
nanowire based TENGs with high output by structural control
and surface functionalization. The PP nanowire arrays are
prepared by a facile hot processing technique using porous
anodic aluminum oxide as template, followed by modifying
with fluorinated compounds to adjust the surface composition
of PP nanowire. Compared with the smooth PP film based
TENG, the fluorinated PP nanowire based TENG shows a
significant improvement of the output to light up 372 commer-
cial LEDs, indicating both the nanowire structures and the
surface composites of the friction material play important roles
in the output of TENG. The nanowire structure increases the
effective contact area to generate more triboelectric charges,
and the post chemical modification with fluorinated compounds
adjusts the polarity of PP nanomaterial to improve the genera-
tion efficiency of triboelectric charges, resulting in a high
56
output performance of TENG. Moreover, the TENG can power a
simple temperature sensor which is sensitive for temperature
from room temperature to 100 oC. As a simple post surface
functionalization technology, the surface modification strategy
provides a new way to make some normal nonpolar materials
into powerful friction materials for TENG use.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the financial support from NSFC
(21303227, 21573259) and the “Hundred Talents Program”
of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found in the online version at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
nanoen.2015.11.017.
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Yange Feng received his B.S. in Chemistry
from Qingdao University of Science and
Technology, China in 2013. He is currently
study in State Key Laboratory of Solid
Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical
Physics (LICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS). He mainly focuses on the research of
fabrication of triboelectric nanogenerators
and nano devices.
Youbin Zheng received his B.S. (2010) in
Electronic Device and Materials Engineering
and Ph.D. (2015) in Material Physics and
Chemistry from Lanzhou University. He is
currently a research assistant at LICP, CAS.
His research mainly focuses on designing
and fabrication of triboelectric generators
that harvest and convert ambient friction
energy into electricity.
Shuanhong Ma received his B.S. (2011) from
Tianshui Normal Univesity. He is currently a
Ph.D student in professor Zhou's Group in
Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS.
His research mainly focuses on biotribology,
bionic-tribology.
Daoai Wang received his Ph.D. in Lanzhou
Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS. From 2009
to 2010, he worked as a Postdoc in Max Planck
Institute of Microstructure Physics. From 2010
to 2013, he worked as a JSPS researcher in the
University of Tokyo. And he is now a professor
in Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics sup-
ported by ‘‘Top Hundred Talents’’ Program of
Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research
interests include mnanoenergy technology,
photoelectrochemistry, and marine tribology.
High output polypropylene nanowire array triboelectric nanogenerator
Feng Zhou got his PhD in 2004 in Lanzhou
Institute of Chemical Physics. He spent
three years (2005–2008) in the department
of Chemistry, University of Cambridge as a
postdoctoral research associate. And he is
currently a professor and deputy director in
State Key Lab of Solid Lubrication, LICP,
CAS. His research interests are the micro/
nanostructured surfaces for lubrication,
drag/noise reduction and anti-biofouling
applications, high performance lubricants. Details can be found
at: http://www.licp.cas.cn/zfz/
57
Weimin Liu got his PhD in Lanzhou Institute
of Chemical Physics in 1990 and spent a year
(1993–1994) in department of Chemistry,
Penn State University, USA. Currently, he is
a full Professor and the director in the State
Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication. He was
elected as Academicians of CAS in 2013. His
research interests cover tribology of poly-
mer composites, organic and nanoparticular
lubricating oil additives, ultra-thin lubricat-
ing films, and particularly in space tribology.