Enhanced triboelectric charge through a facile hydrothermal treatment of electrode

• Increased roughness and electrical conductivity of Al after hydrothermal treatment.
• Enhanced triboelectric charge using a hydrothermally treated Al in PTFE-Al generator.
• Facile tuning of resonance frequency in a capacitor type triboelectric generator.

We report the enhanced triboelectric energy harvesting efficiency in a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-aluminum (Al) based generator through a facile hydrothermal treatment of Al electrode. The dipping of the as-received Al into hot water for several hours results in an increase of surface roughness and electrical conductivity, probably due to the formation of a plate-patterned γ-AlOOH on the Al surface. In a capacitor-type triboelectric generator, in which a PTFE plate vibrates in-between two Al electrodes, we observed that the triboelectric charge increases for the use of hydrothermally treated Al electrodes and reaches a maximum at a certain frequency. Considering the simple hydrothermal treatment of the electrode and the tuning of resonance-like frequency, the capacitor-type PTFE-Al triboelectric generator could be quite useful for a cost-effective, high efficient energy harvesting device for random mechanical vibrations in our daily life.

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