A Triboelectric Nanogenerator Exploiting the Bernoulli Effect for Scavenging Wind Energy

Wind energy is one of the most cost-effective energy sources available today. Some techniques have been developed to scavenge wind energy, but making use of lower flutter velocity while maintaining high conversion efficiency remains challenging. Here, we report a triboelectric nanogenerator composed of two interacting triboelectric films with four flapping modes, enabling an effective work wind velocity as low as 1.6 ms−1 and a high conversion efficiency of 3.23%, which, to our knowledge, are better than previously reported values of wind energy scavenging. The output performance of B-TENG can be determined by device size and flow velocity; the optimized device exhibits an output voltage, current, and power of 175 V, 43 μA, and 2.5 mW, respectively, with dimensions of 3 × 8 × 2 cm3 at a flow velocity of 8 ms−1. The B-TENG may pave the way for future wind scavenging devices for a range of point-of-use applications.