Self-contact-electrification aerogel for all-in-one triboelectricity generation

Self-contact-electrification (SCE), induced by the charge transfer between the contact of positive and negative regions within one material, is an ideal strategy to simplify the working mechanism and device setup of conventional hetero-structured triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG). However, due to its limited electrification polarity, the low outputs of SCE makes it still very challenging to apply for triboelectric nanogeneration. Here, we design and synthesize a three-dimensional TENG aerogel to realize a pore-volume-enhanced SCE for high-performance mechanical energy harvesting. By loading fluorine and sulfone based polyimide (SF-PI) onto an ultra-flexible graphene aerogel (GA) framework, electrons can redistribute between the SF-PI layers under the deformation of aerogel, resulting in charge transfer from graphene to SF-PI to generate electricity. The large specific surface area of GA increases the self-contact area of SF-PI, resulting in high volumetric voltage and current density up to 27 × 103 kV m-3 and 35 mA m-3 under a compressive strain of 95%. This SCE-TENG aerogel can realize an all-in-one strategy for energy havesting and sensing, which may guide and accelerate the development and application of high-performance TENGs.