Sand-polished Kapton film and aluminum as source of electron transfer triboelectric nanogenerator through vertical contact separation mode

Contact electrification is a direct triboelectrification method for producing current through charge transfer when two different differentiated materials have brought into contact. For the first time, we developed a simple triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) where the electronic charges were realized through contact separation mode between sand-polished Kapton (SPK) and Al surface. Here, we demonstrated the energetic interfacial contact between these surfaces and observed satisfactory output performance. The novel SPK-TENG produced 40 V and 2.8 µA, of open-circuit voltages (Voc) and short-circuit currents (Isc) at 4 Hz, respectively. Mainly, the SPK-TENG was dramatically increased up the performance of TENG, up to 40% of Voc and 42% of Isc, with respect to the Kapton film because the mobility of electrons is very high on the device surface compared to the other pristine Kapton film. The fabricated SPK-TENGs were good candidates for satisfying the need for alternative contact separation mode TENGs.