Signal Output of Triboelectric Nanogenerator at Oil-Water-Solid Multiphase Interfaces and its Application for Dual-Signal Chemical Sensing.

A liquid-solid contact triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) based on poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) film, a copper electrode, and a glass substrate for harvesting energy in oil/water multiphases is reported. There are two distinctive signals being generated, one is from the contact electrification and electrostatic induction between the liquid (water/oil) and the PTFE film (VTENG and ITENG ); and the other is from the electrostatic induction in the copper electrode by the oil/water interfacial charges (ΔVinterface and Iinterface ), which is generated only when the liquid-solid contact TENG is inserted across the oil/water interface. The two signals show interesting opposite changing trends that the VTENG and ITENG decrease while the oil/water interfacial signals of ΔVinterface and Iinterface increase after coating a layer of polydopamine on the surfaces of PTFE and glass via self-polymerization. As an application of the observed phenomena, both the values of ITENG and Iinterface have a good linear relationship versus the natural logarithm of the concentration of the dopamine. Based on this, the first self-powered dual-signal detection of dopamine using TENG is demonstrated.