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Everywhere in nature we can find wonder designs and systems that never cease to inspire us looking for answers to engineering and design. In this paper, bio-inspired triboelectric nanogenerator (BITENG) has been designed to mimic the motion of kelp, which gently sways along with wave and harness the energy in this process. The energy harvesting has been proven as stable and efficient, which could work under a vibration frequency as low as to 1 Hz. Correspondingly, an output current of about 10 μA and voltage of 260 V can be given by a single unit, which is enough to drive at least 60 LEDs with a power density of 25 μW·cm−2. Furthermore, large scale application can be promoted by connecting such BITENG into network. Such a bio-inspiration provides a new strategy for harvesting wave-energy with promise for new energy sources based on TENGs.

Rose swayed in the breeze are responsible for harnessing the kinetic energy of wind. From a certain perspective, these phenomenon can be utilized to augment plant function to generate electricity with electroactive materials, where triboelectrification happens for producing electricity due to the difference in triboelectric polarity. In this paper, we creatively utilized the triboelectrification on plant organs, which has rarely been studied before, and constructed triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) by using rose and Poly (methyl methacrylate) in a contact-separation mode. Under a constant periodical compressive force (100 N) at a frequency of 2 Hz, a maximum open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 30.6 V and short-circuit current (Isc) of 0.78 μA were obtained from a fresh rose petal (3 cm × 3 cm). The maximum output power density could be as high as 27.2 mW/m2 at a resistance of 50 MΩ. Further studies disclosed that these petal surface rich in micro- and nanostructures provided sufficient roughness for hydrophobicity, which means that electrical charges could be generated and the mechanical energy of rain drops could be harvested. Therefore, Isc generated from the petal with falling water droplets on its surface was measured and the peak of Isc was 7.84 nA.