A team dedicated to designing energy conversion devices, led by Weilin Chen from Northeast Normal University in Changchun, recently designed a triboelectric nanogenerator based on changing the nanomorphology of polyoxometalates for gait monitoring of teenagers. Flexible, lightweight, and portable triboelectric nanogenerators are currently widely used in the field of wearable devices and have potential application value in gait monitoring. The nanogenerator designed by the team can sensitively capture abnormal gaits of teenagers, which can advance research in this field.
The team published their paper in Nano Research on January 13, 2025.
“In this article, our research team utilized the advantages of polyoxometalates nanomaterials to select POMs nanorods as triboelectric materials to assemble a triboelectric nanogenerator, and conducted a series of performance tests to confirm the improvement in performance. In addition, we also verified the reasons for the device performance improvement through testing. We applied the performance optimized device to gait monitoring in teenagers and achieved good results,” said Chen Weilin, the corresponding author of the article and a professor at the School of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University.
Polyoxometalates (POMs) nanomaterials, synthesized by constructing POMs as functional and structural units into nanostructures, have been extensively studied in the past few decades. They possess excellent physical and chemical properties of POMs, as well as the advantages of small size, rich surface morphology, and large specific surface area that traditional materials lack.
In recent years, the development and utilization of renewable and clean energy has become a research hotspot. The team led by Professor Chen has published several articles in recent years on the application of POMs in the field of TENG, revealing the unique potential of POMs in TENG applications.
Professor Chen said, “We want to expand the application fields of polyoxometalates, utilize the advantages of polyoxometalate nanomaterials, and explore their potential value in the field of nanogenerators.”
The team used six different sized POMs nanorods (Ag4SiW12O40·nH2O) synthesized through self-assembly of POMs (H4SiW12O40·nH2O) as triboelectric materials to assemble TENGs. The TENG composed of nanorod with a diameter of 100 nm and a length of 400–1000 nm has optimal performance with the voltage, current density and charge are 104.3 V, 1127.1 μA‧m−2, and 15.38 nC, respectively, which are more than two times of the TENG composed of POMs (H4SiW12O40·nH2O).
The optimized TENG maintained a voltage of around 100 V throughout the 1000 s stability test. The maximum power amounts to 25.2 μW at 500 MΩ external resistance. The reasons for the improved performance of nanorods TENG compared to POMs TENG are the increase in roughness and surface potential, which was confirmed through AFM and KPFM testing.
The team has determined that POMs nanorods TENGs can achieve significant performance improvements, providing new ideas for the selection of triboelectric materials and a new research perspective for the chemistry of polyoxometalates.
Teenagers are in a critical period of skeletal development, during which incorrect gait not only affects their appearance, but also leads to bent postures, low athletic abilities, and increased risk of sports injuries. Timely monitoring of the abnormal gaits of teenagers is crucial for their physical health and development.
Professor Chen’s team applied optimized TENG to the left and right feet of different teenagers to monitor abnormal gait. The changes in voltage can sensitively display the inconsistency and abnormal situations of gaits. This study confirms the potential and unique advantages of POMs nanomaterials as triboelectric materials and provides a design scheme for gait monitoring.
Looking ahead, the team stated that they will conduct more in-depth research on the application of POMs nanorods TENGs for gait monitoring, and strive to bring this application out of the laboratory as soon as possible. “We will continue to develop more POMs nanomaterials with excellent performance for the TENGs field through the design and modification of POMs materials,” said Wei-Lin Chen.
The Chinese research team includes Yijia Hao, Tuo Ji, Jing Zhang and Weilin Chen from the Northeast Normal University in Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
Provided by
Tsinghua University Press
