Liquid-Liquid Triboelectric Nanogenerators Based on Bionic Slippery Lubricant-Infused Porous Surfaces

In the era of high energy dependence, self-powered smart devices have been widely used in the energy field, especially the continuous long-term operation in harsh environments is the biggest challenge at present. In the past few years, the innovation of Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) can effectively convert the kinetic energy of ocean waves and rain into electricity. However, this type of equipment encounters a bottleneck in practical applications, that is, the equipment is exposed to harsh environments for a long time, which will cause damage or aging due to inevitable physical and chemical effects, resulting in reduced power output. To overcome this difficulty, we propose an innovative liquid-liquid TENG (L-L TENG) integrated with slippery lubricant-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS), which is called SLIPS-TENG. Inspired by nepenthes, we use Poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) imitates its unique structure as the base layer through electrospinning, and inject silicon oil (SO) to form a uniform, defect-free and slippery hydrophobic coating on the base layer to prevent liquids from adhering to the surface of the TENG device. The results show that the liquids on SLIPS-TENG show lower contact hysteresis than TENG fabricated with only hydrophobic surface, and the fast sliding enables efficient charge transfer during the drop process. In addition, combined with the versatility of SLIPS-TENG, its self-healing and self-cleaning capabilities enable it to continue operating stably in harsh environments or at extreme low temperatures.