A pipe arrangement structure triboelectric nanogenerator for mechanical energy harvesting and sports training monitoring

Recently, intelligent wearable sensors applied in the field of smart sports have attracted much attention. Hence, we designed a pipe arrangement structure triboelectric nanogenerator (PA-TENG), and it can obtain mechanical energy and monitor sports motion. The triboelectric materials are composed of a polydimethylsiloxane layer attached to a silicone tube and nylon layer. The conductive copper attached to the silicone tube surface serves as a conductive electrode of the PA-TENG. Meanwhile, the soft silicone tube can endow the PA-TENG device with the ability to sense pressure. The results indicate that this silicone tube substrate can effectively adsorb conductive copper layers, and the conductive electrode layer still maintains good conductivity stability at different bending angles (15°–90°). The PA-TENG can achieve the maximum output power of 1.03 mW (matched load: 6 MΩ). The results indicate that the PA-TENG can attain the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 190.05 V and the short-circuit current (Isc) of 1.98 μA. The transfer charge (Qsc) of the PA-TENG can arrive at 139.01 nC. The PA-TENG can drive the light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which demonstrates good practicality. Moreover, the PA-TENG can be installed on human joints (fingers, arms, knees, feet, etc.) as a monitoring sensor for various sports training, providing real-time sensing data for training. This research provides a novel pipe arrangement substrate for the wearable sports training sensor.