A hand-driven portable triboelectric nanogenerator using whirligig spinning dynamics

Pervasive and portable energy solutions are highly desired in the era of Internet of Things for powering wide-range distributed electronics. Human body contains renewable biomechanical energy sources, which could be harnessed for sustainable electricity generation as portable power sources for wearable bioelectronics. Herein, we propose an ultralow-cost, efficient, portable hand-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (HD-TENG) enabled by whirligig spinning to harvest energy from low-frequency and linear human biomechanical motions. Remarkably, the operating HD-TENG could easily achieve a rotational speed of over 10,000 rpm with a gentle hand stretching in a linear and periodic manner. The reported HD-TENG was demonstrated to charge a 220 μF commercial capacitor up to 3 V in less than 80 s, and continuously drive a smart bracelet for health monitoring, and a portable MPEG-1 audio layer III for music playing. With a collection features of high output power, light weight, excellent portability, ease of transport, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness, the ingeniously designed HD-TENG represents a convenient green power supply approach for wearable bioelectronics in the era of Internet of Things.