Flexible nanogenerator with improved power density could one day rival solar panels

Your morning run could soon help harvest enough electricity to power your wearables, thanks to new nanotechnology developed at the University of Surrey.

Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has developed flexible, energy-efficient nanogenerators with a power density 140 times greater than conventional nanogenerators. ATI researchers believe this development could pave the way for nanodevices as efficient as today’s solar cells.

The results are published in the journal Nanoenergy.

Surrey’s devices can convert small amounts of everyday mechanical energy, such as movement, into much larger amounts of electrical energy, much like an amplifier amplifies sound in an electronic system. For example, if a traditional nanogenerator produces 10 milliwatts of energy, this new technology could boost that output to more than 1,000 milliwatts, making it suitable for energy harvesting in a variety of everyday applications.

ATI’s nanogenerator works like a relay team: instead of a single electrode (the runner) transmitting energy (charge) on its own, each runner collects a pole (charge), adds more, then passes all the poles to the next runner, increasing the overall energy collected in a process called the charge regeneration effect.

Lead author of the study, Md Delowar Hussain from the University of Surrey, said: “The dream of nanogenerators is to capture and use energy from everyday movements, such as your morning run, mechanical vibrations, ocean waves or the opening of a door.

“The key innovation of our nanogenerator is that we have refined the technology with 34 tiny energy harvesters using a laser technique that can be scaled up for manufacturing to further increase energy efficiency.

“What’s really exciting is that our small, high-density energy-harvesting device could one day rival the power of solar panels and could be used to power anything from self-powered sensors to smart home systems that operate without ever needing to change the battery.”

The device is a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), a device that can capture and transform the energy of simple, everyday movements into electricity. It works by using materials that become electrically charged when they come into contact and then separate, like when you rub a balloon on your hair and it sticks together because of static electricity.

Dr Bhaskar Dudem, co-author of the study from the University of Surrey, said: “We will soon be launching a company focused on non-invasive, self-powered healthcare sensors using triboelectric technology. Innovations like these will enable us to drive new spin-off businesses in sustainable healthcare technologies, improve sensitivity and focus on industrial scalability.”

Professor Ravi Silva, co-author of the study and Director of the Institute of Advanced Technology at the University of Surrey, said: “With the ever-changing technology around us, it is predicted that we will have over 50 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the coming years that will need energy to power them.

“Local green energy solutions are needed. This could be a practical wireless technology that harnesses the energy of any mechanical movement to power small devices. It offers the scientific and technical community an opportunity to find innovative and sustainable solutions to global challenges.”

“We are extremely excited about the potential of these nanogenerators to transform the way we think about energy. We could also imagine these devices being used in self-powered, IoT-based smart systems, such as autonomous wireless operations, security monitoring and smart home systems, or even to help patients with dementia, an area in which the University of Surrey has great expertise.”