A triboelectric nanogenerator based on waste polyvinyl chloride for Morse code generator

• DOI: 10.1016/j.sna.2021.112633
• Publication Date: 2021-02-19T06:45:14Z
• Authors: Ping Zhang; Weikang Zhang; Honghao Zhang
• Keywords: Nanogenerator

Abstract The rapid development of food delivery had led to a significant increase in the use of cling film, which was made of Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and then environmental pollution had become more serious. Due to experimental requirements, laboratory coats are regularly replaced and there is no good way to recycle them. As mentioned above, it not only caused waste of resources but also caused environmental pollution. At the same time, the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) had become a promising energy collector in today's energy shortage situation, which could be made of ordinary materials. For effective waste utilization, we proposed a novel resource-saving and eco-friendly triboelectric nanogenerator using PVC cling film and nylon, and PVC cling film was used for the first time as a recycled triboelectric material to fabricate the TENG. The approximate values of open-circuit voltage ( V o c ), short-circuit current ( I S C ), and output power density of the fabricated PN-TENG could reach 31 V, 3.1 μA, and 11.9 m W / m 2 , respectively. At the same time, it could light up 28 commercial LED lights. PN-TENG acted as a finger mechanical energy harvester and the V o c is about 6 V under the drive of a finger. Simultaneously, it could directly drive a liquid crystal display and display the “1895″ message. Furthermore, a self-powered Morse code generator was constructed by touching PN-TENG with different numbers of fingers, and successfully generated the "TJU" message. It was worth mentioning that all the materials required by PN-TENG were recycled and reused. The research provided an idea of using trash to make energy harvesters, which was friendly to the environment.