A polarized broken framework for electrical energy harvesting from mechanical friction

Abstract

It is essential to harness energy from every available source to meet the rapidly growing demand. Motion-assisted energy harvesting is an emerging and promising technique to achieve this. Mechanical friction between two surfaces generates charge separation, which results in an electric current that can be captured as usable energy. This principle is utilized in a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which relies on surfaces with appropriate charge characteristics. In this work, we present a novel approach to create a negatively charged surface by using bromine- and oxygen-rich broken frameworks of a 3D covalent organic framework (3D-COF) on a PAN surface (TamDbta-PAN). The TamDbta-PAN was fabricated through in situ dripping of TamDbta broken framework spheres from a water–ethylacetate interface onto a PAN surface. Notably, this functionally rich TamDbta-PAN serves as an effective tribonegative layer when paired with a tribopositive nylon-11 layer, achieving a high power density of 2342 mW m⁻² and demonstrating efficient energy harvesting from mechanical friction.