A Wideband Triboelectric Energy Harvester

Contact electrification or triboelectric charging has mostly been seen as a negative phenomenon in various engineering applications. In electronic applications, static charge buildup may even destroy some of the components. In this paper, we demonstrate a cantilever based design using triboelectric charging mechanism for energy harvesting applications. The voltage output of triboelectric energy harvester (TEH) continuously increases with increased mass applied force and proof mass loading on the cantilever. The voltage output increases from 0.4V to 1.8V as the excitation acceleration increases from 0.4g to 1.8g. The design has been shown to demonstrate wide bandwidth characteristics. The FWHM increases from 3.76 to 12.64 Hz as the acceleration increases from 0.4g to 1.8g. The peak power output is found to be 0.18 mu W at 1.4g.