Investigating the Surface Treatment Effect on Triboelectric Generators

Abstract

Triboelectrification is a novel technology to harvest electricity from unexploited environmental energy. Its efficiency depends on the area, morphology and charges on the in-contact surfaces. Many studies were carried out to increase the efficiency of the triboelectric generators by increasing the area of the surface or varying the morphology but the charge density is not properly focused till date. Herein, we will discuss the effect of the artificial charges induced on the in-contact surface. For that purpose, plasma treatment was used to enhance the triboelectric current generation efficiency. This increment in charge densities actually helped us to increase the efficiency of triboelectric generator even without changing the dimensions of the device. The output power was increased up to two folds as compare to the untreated device. At the end we also charged the capacitors in order to compare the charge storing efficiencies of both devices. We found that the untreated device and plasma treated device (15 min and 30 min) stored voltages up to 6 V and 9 V and 12 V respectively. This type of study will surely support the researchers to enhance the triboelectric current generation efficiency even without increasing the size of the device.