Superior performance of half-wave to full-wave rectifier as a power conditioning circuit for triboelectric nanogenerators: Application to contact-separation and sliding mode TENG

In this brief communication the performance of a half-wave rectifier is compared with a full-wave rectifier as a conditioning circuit (CC) for a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) in providing electrical energy to a capacitive load. Contrary to the common understanding, it is shown that half-wave circuit provides a higher maximum energy to the capacitive load compared to full-wave. Formulas are provided to calculate the maximum energy delivered by the TENG to a capacitive load. Theoretical results show the enhanced performance of the half-wave CC compared to the full-wave. A TENG working in contact-separation mode is fabricated and tested with both CC's and experimental results show a very good agreement with theoretical derivations, and confirm that half-wave CC provides a higher energy to the load compared to full-wave. The outcomes of this report should be useful for the researchers working on the development of CC's for TENG's.