Performance-Enhanced Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerator Based on Gold Chloride-Doped Graphene

The energy crisis and the rise of flexible electronics call for a renewable and flexible energy source due to the inconvenience of the traditional power supply. A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with high power density and flexibility can effectively harvest the mechanical energy in the environment and human body to form a self-powered unit. Carbon-based materials are widely used to fabricate a flexible and stretchable TENG. However, it is still needed to improve the output performance to meet the practical requirement. It is worth studying how to effectively introduce various dopants into carbon-based materials. Herein, we demonstrated a simple and effective method to enhance the performance of the flexible TENG based on AuCl3-doped crumpled graphene (CG). Instead of dangerous solvents, AuCl3 dissolved in deionized water was successfully introduced onto the surface of CG due to the crumple structure. Also, the performance can be greatly improved due to the dopants. The output voltage and current of the TENG based on doped CG with 1.2 mg/mL doping concentration can reach up to 80.6 V and 11.9 μA/cm2, respectively. Furthermore, the relationships between the output performance and environmental factors including working force, frequency, and temperature were investigated. This research introduces an easy fabrication and cost effective method to improve the performance of the TENG, which can be popularized to other material systems.