A 1500 Revolutions Per Minute 3D-Printed Bearing-Structural Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Self-Powered Intelligent Vehicle Monitoring System

Maintaining a high working frequency is critical one of technical solutions to the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for improving its output power. Herein, we report a 3D-printed bearing-structural TENG (BS-TENG), which achieved a speed breakthrough of nearly 1500 rpm for the first time by 3D-printing diversified design whereby to enable even higher working frequency. Integrated BS-TENGs network can be utilized as both rotational energy harvester and self-powered high speed sensing system for vehicle temperature and speed real-time monitoring. It was vital that one unit delivers a peak power of 0.96 mW under an external load of 8 MΩ. Moreover, a capacitor of 1000 µF was charged by integrated energy harvester to achieve voltage of 4 V that just take nearly 80 s under rotational speed of 600 rpm. Furthermore, the results confirmed that the accuracy of the self-powered vehicle speed monitoring could more than 99% level under a wide range of 100 to 1500 rpm. This study not only presents a new approach for upgrading the working frequency of TENGs, but also provides new opportunities for TENGs in intelligent vehicle autonomous driving system.