A Multifunctional All-Nanofiber Membrane-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting and Motion Sensing

Wearable electronics have become a hot research field of next-generation electronics. Despite significant progress in the advancement of wearable electronics, powering these devices with sustainable energy sources and equipping them with special functions remain formidable challenges. Herein, a multifunctional all-nanofiber-based TENG prepared by a simple electrospinning technique is reported, which exhibits good biodegradability, antibacterial activity, UV-protective, flame retardant properties, and hydrophobicity for human motion sensing and biomechanical energy harvesting. This TENG is fabricated by sandwiching a silver nanowire (AgNW) between a sodium alginate (SA) nanofiber membrane-based triboelectric layer and a modified multifunctional substrate layer. Due to the added poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and BaTiO3 nanoparticles (BTO) in the SA nanofiber membrane, the output voltage and transferred charge of the TENG are increased by about 4.95 and 3.89 times, and it exhibits a high output power density of 654 mW m–2. Additionally, after modification with phytic acid, octadecylamine, and TiO2 nanoparticles, the nanofiber membrane exhibits special properties, such as UV-protective, hydrophobicity, flame retardancy, antibacterial capabilities, and degradability. Finally, the constructed TENG device is utilized to monitor various human motions in a self-powered manner and harvest energy from body movements to power wearable sensors. Given the outstanding features, the fabricated TENG paves a new and practical pathway to develop next-generation wearable electronics.