Remarkable merits of triboelectric nanogenerator than electromagnetic generator for harvesting small-amplitude mechanical energy.

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a new energy technology that is as important as traditional electromagnetic generator (EMG) for converting mechanical energy into electricity, which shows great advantages of simple structure, high power density and low-frequency. Here, the effects of motion amplitude for both generators are first taken into consideration. Our result demonstrates that the TENG has a much better performance than that of the EMG at small amplitude. Under fixed operation frequency, the maximum output power of the TENG rapidly grows to saturation with the increase of the amplitude, while that of the EMG grows slowly and gradually. This contrastive characteristic is verified at different frequencies, which has demonstrated that the TENG has dominant scope over the EMG, in not only low-frequency but also small-amplitude. Moreover, electronics powered by the TENG in small-amplitude has been exhibited and an overall comparison of the TENG and EMG is summarized. Beyond low-frequency, this work has verified the small-amplitude is also a remarkable merit of the TENG for harvesting micro-mechanical energy, which has guided the development prospects of TENG as a foundation of the energy for the new era for internet of things, wearable electronics, robotics and artificial intelligence. Image 1 • This is the first paper to compare the effects of motion amplitude for EMG and TENG, which demonstrates that the TENG has a much better performance than that of the EMG at small amplitude. • This contrastive characteristic is verified at different frequencies, which has demonstrated that the TENG has dominant scope over the EMG, in not only low-frequency but also small-amplitude. • An overall comparison of the TENG and EMG is summarized, in which the small-amplitude is also a remarkable merit of the TENG as a foundation of the energy for the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]