Nanoporous cobalt oxide-based bifunctional triboelectric nanogenerators for self-powered pressure sensor

Herein, a stretchable and wearable, bifunctional triboelectric nanogenerator (B-TENG) is newly proposed by using metal-organic framework-obtained nanoporous cobalt oxide NPCO/silicone and MXene/silicone nanocomposite. The high charge accumulation in NPCO/silicone nanocomposite due to its excellent nanoporosity significantly increased the electronegativity of the nanocomposite by four times. Moreover, incorporating MXene/silicone used as an intermediate layer improved the charge-trapping capability and increased the electronegativity by nine times. The knitted fabric was utilized as a stretchable electrode. The fabricated B-TENG exhibited a high-power density (10.4 W/m2), which is almost 8 times greater than the pure silicone-based TENG. The B-TENG was successfully demonstrated to monitor foot pressure distribution as a self-powered biomotion sensor with high sensitivity (5.82 V/kPa).