Design and Applications of Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Mr Yonghong Liufu, City University of Hong Kong

Abstract: Self-powered systems aim to harvest ambient energy and use it directly for sensing, signal processing and communication. Among different energy-harvesting technologies, triboelectric nanogenerators provide a promising route for converting distributed mechanical energy into electrical signals and power, especially for wearable devices, distributed sensors and low-frequency mechanical inputs. However, their practical use remains limited by inefficient energy extraction and unstable sensing outputs. In contact-separation devices, air breakdown, charge loss and unfavorable capacitance evolution restrict transferable charge and harvested energy. In sensing applications, highly pulsed and variable source outputs make stable quantitative readout difficult, especially under weak or single-event mechanical inputs. This seminar aims to discuss two device-system co-design strategies: displacement-programmed capacitance control for energy harvesting and source-free decay readout for self-powered sensing. The first strategy reshapes the capacitance evolution of contact-separation triboelectric nanogenerators to suppress premature micro-gap discharge and increase harvested energy. The second strategy converts weak transient events into temporally separated feature pulses and extracts quantitative information from the ratio of post-source decay times rather than raw triboelectric amplitudes.This seminar also shares his perspective on identifying application scenarios where the unique pulsed, high-voltage and event-driven characteristics of TENGs can provide practical value, rather than simply replacing conventional powered sensors. Together, these approaches aim to advance the practical application of TENGs in self-powered electronics and sensing.

Speaker's Bio: Yonghong Liufu received his B.S.E. degree in 2018 and subsequently worked as an electrical engineer for one year at China Southern Airlines. He obtained an M.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from South China University of Technology in 2023 and is currently a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include self-powered sensing systems, energy harvesting, and power electronics for nanogenerator systems.