Simultaneously Harvesting Thermal and Mechanical Energies based on Flexible Hybrid Nanogenerator for Self-Powered Cathodic Protection.

Metal corrosion occurs anytime and anywhere in nature and the corrosion prevention has a great significance everywhere in national economic development and daily life. Here, we demonstrate a flexible hybrid nanogenerator (NG) that is capable of simultaneously or individually harvesting ambient thermal and mechanical energies and used for a self-powered cathodic protection (CP) system without using an external power source. Because of its double peculiarities of both pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties, a polarized poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) film-based NG was constructed to scavenge both thermal and mechanical energies. As a supplementary, a triboelectric NG was constructed below the pyro/piezoelectric NG to grab ambient mechanical energy. The output power of the fabricated hybrid NG can be directly used to protect the metal surface from the chemical corrosion. Our results not only verify the feasibility of self-powered CP-based NGs, but also expand potential self-powered applications.