Inductor-Free Wireless Energy Delivery via Maxwell's Displacement Current from an Electrodeless Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Xia Cao; Meng Zhang; Jinrong Huang; Tao Jiang; Jingdian Zou; Ning Wang; Zhong Lin Wang

doi:10.1002/adma.201704077

Inductor-Free Wireless Energy Delivery via Maxwell's Displacement Current from an Electrodeless Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Adv Mater. 2018 Feb;30(6). doi: 10.1002/adma.201704077. Epub 2018 Jan 5.

Authors

Xia Cao^{1

2}, Meng Zhang¹, Jinrong Huang¹, Tao Jiang¹, Jingdian Zou¹, Ning Wang^{3

4}, Zhong Lin Wang^{1

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, China.
² Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, Beijing Key Laboratory for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China.
³ Center for Green Innovation, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China.
⁴ School of Material Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0245, USA.
⁵ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Beijing, 100190, China.

PMID: 29315850
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201704077

Abstract

Wireless power delivery has been a dream technology for applications in medical science, security, radio frequency identification (RFID), and the internet of things, and is usually based on induction coils and/or antenna. Here, a new approach is demonstrated for wireless power delivery by using the Maxwell's displacement current generated by an electrodeless triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that directly harvests ambient mechanical energy. A rotary electrodeless TENG is fabricated using the contact and sliding mode with a segmented structure. Due to the leakage of electric field between the segments during relative rotation, the generated Maxwell's displacement current in free space is collected by metal collectors. At a gap distance of 3 cm, the output wireless current density and voltage can reach 7 µA cm^-2 and 65 V, respectively. A larger rotary electrodeless TENG and flexible wearable electrodeless TENG are demonstrated to power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) through wireless energy delivery. This innovative discovery opens a new avenue for noncontact, wireless energy transmission for applications in portable and wearable electronics.

Keywords: displacement current; triboelectric nanogenerators; wearable devices; wireless energy delivery.