Influence of temperature difference on performance of solid-liquid triboelectric nanogenerators

Currently, the influence of external factors on the charge transfer between solid and liquid materials remains to be researched. Here, we reveal the effect of temperature on the output performance of some solid-liquid TENGs through a series of systematic experiments and a theoretical model. Firstly, we propose a simplified simulation method to evaluate the potential distribution of solid-liquid TENGs. Secondly, we test the performance of four solid TENG materials and three liquids at different temperatures, and results show that the influence of temperature on different TENGs is inconsistent. The output voltage, current, and transferred charges of PTFE-TENG increase 113%, 105%, and 71%, respectively, when the temperature of deionized water increases from 20 to 80 ℃. The instantaneous power of tap water-FEP TENG at 60 ℃ is 717% higher than that at 20 ℃. However, for NaCl solution (3.5 wt%), the temperature shows few effects on the output of TENGs, and the ion concentration displays a dominant position in the charge transfer process. Finally, we use an electric double layer model to explain this phenomenon properly.