A team that dedicated to designing energy conversion devices led by Weilin Chen from Northeast Normal University in Changchun, Jilin Province, China recently designed a triboelectric nanogenerator based on changing the nanomorphology of polyoxometalates for gait monitoring of teenagers. Flexible, lightweight, and portable triboelectric nanogenerators are currently widely used in the field of wearable devices and have potential application value in gait monitoring. The nanogenerator designed by the team can sensitively capture abnormal gait of teenagers, which can advance research in this field.
The team published their paper in Nano Research on January 13, 2025.
"In this article, our research team utilized the advantages of polyoxometalates nanomaterials to select POMs nanorods as triboelectric materials to assemble a triboelectric nanogenerator, and conducted a series of performance tests to confirm the improvement in performance. In addition, we also verified the reasons for the device performance improvement through testing. We applied the performance optimized device to gait monitoring in teenagers and achieved good results," said Chen Weilin, the corresponding author of the article and a professor at the School of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University. Professor Chen is also the vice director of the Key Laboratory of Polyoxometalate and Reticular Material Chemistry of Ministry of Education.
Polyoxometalates (POMs) nanomaterials, synthesized by constructing POMs as functional and structural units into nanostructures, has been extensively studied in the past few decades. They possess excellent physical and chemical properties of POMs, as well as the advantages of small size, rich surface morphology, and large specific surface area that traditional materials lack. In recent years, the development and utilization of renewable and clean energy have become a research hotspot. The team led by Professor Chen has published several articles in recent years on the application of POMs in the field of TENG, revealing the unique potential of POMs in TENG applications.
Professor Chen said, "We want to expand the application fields of polyoxometalates, utilize the advantages of polyoxometalate nanomaterials, and explore their potential value in the field of nanogenerators."
The team used six different sized POMs nanorods (Ag4SiW12O40·nH2O) synthesized through self-assembly of POMs (H4SiW12O40·nH2O) as triboelectric materials to assemble TENGs. The TENG composed of nanorod with a diameter of 100 nm and a length of 400–1000 nm has optimal performance with the voltage, current density and charge are 104.3 V, 1127.1 μA‧m−2, and 15.38 nC, respectively, which are more than two times of the TENG composed of POMs (H4SiW12O40·nH2O). The optimized TENG maintained a voltage of around 100 V throughout the 1000 s stability test. The maximum power amounts to 25.2 μW at 500 MΩ external resistance. The reasons for the improved performance of nanorods TENG compared to POMs TENG are the increase in roughness and surface potential, which was confirmed through AFM and KPFM testing.
The team has determined that POMs nanorods TENGs can achieve significant performance improvements, providing new ideas for the selection of triboelectric materials and a new research perspective for the chemistry of polyoxometalates.
Teenagers are in a critical period of skeletal development, during which incorrect gait not only affects their appearance, but also leads to bent postures, low athletic abilities, and increases risk of sports injuries. Timely monitoring abnormal gaits of teenagers is crucial for their physical health and development.
Professor Chen's team applied optimized TENG to the left and right feet of different teenagers to monitor abnormal gait. The changes in voltage can sensitively display the inconsistency and abnormal situations of gaits. This study confirms the potential and unique advantages of POMs nanomaterials as triboelectric materials and provides a design scheme for gait monitoring.
Looking ahead, the team stated that they will conduct more in-depth research on the application of POMs nanorods TENGs for gait monitoring, and strive to bring this application out of the laboratory as soon as possible. "We will continue to develop more POMs nanomaterials with excellent performance for the TENGs field through the design and modification of POMs materials," said Wei-Lin Chen.
The Chinese research team includes Yijia Hao, Tuo Ji, Jing Zhang and Weilin Chen from the Northeast Normal University in Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22271042 and 21871041), Science and Technology Research Project of the Education Department of Jilin Province (No. JJKH20211286KJ), the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province (No. 20180101298JC), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2412022ZD009).
About the Authors
Weilin Chen received her B.S. degree from Northeast Normal University in 2005 and obtained her Ph.D. degree from Northeast Normal University in 2010 with the supervision of Prof. Enbo Wang. Later, she carried out the postdoctoral work (2014) with Prof. Yi-Ying Wu in Ohio State University. She has published more than 80 papers in the field of POM-based solar cells since 2012. Her current research interest is concentrated on the design and synthesis of the POMs-based energy conversion device.
About Nano Research
Nano Research is a peer-reviewed, open access, international and interdisciplinary research journal, sponsored by Tsinghua University and the Chinese Chemical Society, published by Tsinghua University Press on the platform SciOpen. It publishes original high-quality research and significant review articles on all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology, ranging from basic aspects of the science of nanoscale materials to practical applications of such materials. After 17 years of development, it has become one of the most influential academic journals in the nano field. Nano Research has published more than 1,000 papers every year from 2022, with its cumulative count surpassing 7,000 articles. In 2023 InCites Journal Citation Reports, its 2023 IF is 9.6 (9.0, 5 years), and it continues to be the Q1 area among the four subject classifications. Nano Research Award, established by Nano Research together with TUP and Springer Nature in 2013, and Nano Research Young Innovators (NR45) Awards, established by Nano Research in 2018, have become international academic awards with global influence.
About SciOpen
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