A Triboelectric Nanogenerator Based on a Pendulum-Plate Wave Energy Converter

Abstract Ocean waves are a promising source of renewable energy, but harvesting this irregular low-frequency energy is challenging due to technological limitations. In this paper, a pendulum plate-based triboelectric nanogenerator (PP-TENG) is proposed. The PP-TENG absorbs wave energy through the pendulum plate installed at the bottom of the device, which generates a swing effect. This drives the motion of the upper TENG power generation unit and generates a charge transfer on the surface of a film of polymer PTFE and nylon, materials which are very sensitive to the low-frequency wave environment. The PP-TENG was tested after building a semi-physical simulation test platform. When the polymer materials were PTFE with a thickness of 0.01 mm and nylon with a thickness of 0.02 mm, 33 commercial LED lamps could be lit simultaneously. Moreover, under short-circuit conditions, the current reached 2.45 μA, and under open-circuit conditions, the voltage reached 212 V. When the PP-TENG was connected in series with a resistor with a resistance of 3 × 105 Ω, its maximum peak power density reached 6.74 mW/m2. It can be concluded that the PP-TENG is characterised by low fabrication costs and excellent energy conversion efficiency. The combination of a pendulum wave energy converter with a TENG shows great output performance. This research lays a solid foundation for practical applications of the proposed structure in the future.