Self‐Powered Wireless Sensor Node Enabled by a Duck‐Shaped Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Harvesting Water Wave Energy

TLDR

The study introduces a duck‑shaped triboelectric nanogenerator to harvest low‑frequency water‑wave energy and demonstrates its use in powering a commercial wireless temperature sensor node. The authors design a fully enclosed duck‑shaped TENG that operates via a freestanding rolling mode and pitch motion, assemble three units into a hybrid system, and analyze its fluid–solid interaction to assess dynamic behavior, mechanical efficiency, and stability. The hybrid system delivers a peak current of 65.5 µA and a power density of 1.366 W m⁻², and the duck‑shaped TENG is lightweight, stable, and suitable for building networks of blue‑energy harvesters.

Abstract

This paper presents a fully enclosed duck‐shaped triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for effectively scavenging energy from random and low‐frequency water waves. The design of the TENG incorporates the freestanding rolling mode and the pitch motion of a duck‐shaped structure generated by incident waves. By investigating the material and structural features, a unit of the TENG device is successfully designed. Furthermore, a hybrid system is constructed using three units of the TENG device. The hybrid system achieves an instantaneous peak current of 65.5 µA with an instantaneous output power density of up to 1.366 W m −2 . Following the design, a fluid–solid interaction analysis is carried out on one duck‐shaped TENG to understand the dynamic behavior, mechanical efficiency, and stability of the device under various water wave conditions. In addition, the hybrid system is experimentally tested to enable a commercial wireless temperature sensor node. In summary, the unique duck‐shaped TENG shows a simple, cost‐effective, environmentally friendly, light‐weight, and highly stable system. The newly designed TENG is promising for building a network of generators to harvest existing blue energy in oceans, lakes, and rivers.