Harvesting energy from human body motion
Since there is abundant mechanical energy generated on human bodies in people's everyday life, we can make use of the triboelectric nanogenerator to convert this amount of mechanical energy into electricity, for charging portable electronics and biomedical applications. This will help to greatly improve the convenience of people's life and expand the application of the personal electronics. A packaged power-generating insole with built-in flexible multi-layered triboelectric nanogenerators has been demonstrated, which enable harvesting mechanical pressure during normal walking. The TENG used here relies on the contact-separation mode and is effective in responding to the periodic compression of the insole. Using the insole as a direct power source, we develop a fully packaged self-lighting shoe that has broad applications for display and entertainment purposes. A TENG can be attached to the inner layer of a shirt for harvesting energy from body motion. Under the generally walking, the maximum output of voltage and current density are up to 17 V and 0.02 μA/cm2, respectively. The TENG with a single layer size of 2 cm×7 cm×0.08 cm sticking on the clothes was demonstrated as a sustainable power source that not only can directly light up 30 light-emitting diodes (LEDs), but also can charge a lithium ion battery by persistently clapping clothes.