Harvesting multidirectional wind energy based on flow-induced vibration triboelectric nanogenerator with directional tuning mechanism

Abstract

Wind-induced vibration (WIV), as low-velocity wind energy utilization technology in agricultural environment, has significant advantages. Nevertheless, there is a mismatch between the variability of wind direction and the work mode of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which leads to a sharp decline in the performance of triboelectric power generation. This work proposes a TENG based on multidirectional WIV (TENG-WIV), which mainly contains triboelectric power generation unit, guide-wing and triboelectric direction sensor. By introducing the directional tuning mechanism based on guide-wing, the TENG-WIV aims to break the constraints of single wind direction response and effectively respond to the wind direction within 360° range, thereby realizing multidirectional wind energy harvesting and sensor power supply. The empirical findings indicate that the output voltage and current of triboelectric power generation unit are in the ranges of 62–241 V and 0.25–1.21 μA, respectively, at the wind velocities of 1.23–5.13 m/s. At a wind velocity of 3.18 m/s, the unit achieves an out-power peak of 0.09 mW. Furthermore, the triboelectric direction sensor can respond to changes in 8 directions and has wind direction monitoring potentiality. The directional tuning mechanism endows flow-induced vibration energy harvesters with an all-around multidirectional sensitivity.