HYBRID TRIBOELECTRIC-THERMOELECTRIC NANOGENERATOR BASED ON FABRIC COMPOSITED WITH CONDUCTIVE POLYMERS/CNT

Abstract

Nowadays, the electronic textiles (e-textiles), a combination of textiles and electronic components have gained much attention along with the attention of a textile-triboelectric nanogenerator (T-TENG) to be utilized as energy system in e-textiles. However, the continuous contact and friction mechanism of T-TENG leads to generating some waste heat which is the driving force of temporary charges formation. In addition, this pain point producing an unstable output voltage with low output current that limits their performance. Therefore, the aim of this work is to improve T-TENG efficiency by combining it with thermoelectric nanogenerator (TEG) as a hybrid TENG-TEG system. This work focused on the modification of cellulose based fabric (Rayon and cotton fabric) by adding conductive polymers and conductive polymers/carbon nanotube (CNT) as thermoelectric materials. Both conductive polymers of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and polyaniline (PANI) are studied. The facile strategy of ultrasonicated dip-coating is used. Therefore, the hybrid TENG-TEG device in this work is fabricated by using cellulose-based fabric/conductive polymers in various systems (Rayon/P3HT, Rayon/PANI, cotton/PANI and cotton/PANI/CNT) as main friction materials to enhance the output performance. The composite fabrics characterization and conductive polymers distribution are examined. Also, the thermoelectric properties, electrical properties and output efficiency are investigated. As shown in the results, it was found that the greater thermoelectric and electrical performance of hybrid TENG-TEG in various system related to the addition of conductive polymers. Accordingly, the Rayon/P3HT 150 mg showed the electrical output of ~63 V and ~45 µA for open-circuit voltage (VOC) and short-circuit current (ISC), two times higher than using pristine Rayon. Meanwhile, the Rayon/PANI and cotton/PANI at optimum condition presented the larger electrical properties and output efficiency than pristine cellulose-based fabrics. However, it demonstrates the fluctuation results between electrical properties and electrical output. So, the cotton/PANI/CNT three phases composite are studied. It was found that the cotton/PANI/CNT 1.50 g obviously showed the best performance with the maximum Seebeck coefficient of 98.5 mV/K and the VOC and ISC of ~40 V and ~77 mA. The Pmax reaches ~263 µW, 5.3 times higher than pristine cotton. Furthermore, a hybrid TENG-TEG contains capability to light up 100 LEDs in series circuit connection and can be applied as power supply for drive various of small-electronic devices. The high performance of hybrid device in this work leads to have a chance to advance into E-textiles system for commercial use in the future.

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