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Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerators Systems

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Smart Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2022) | Viewed by 13046

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Tao Jiang

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Guest Editor

1. Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101400, China
2. School of Nanoscience and Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Interests: triboelectric nanogenerators; blue energy harvesting; power management; self-powered systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Energy is a fundamental driving force of the global economy, and today, the world energy mainly relies on fossil fuels. However, due to the depletion of fossil fuels and the problems of environmental pollution and climate change, the sustainable development of human civilization has been facing a huge challenge. Therefore, harvesting renewable energies from our ambient environment through the development of micro/nanoscale energy technologies is of great practical value. Nanogenerators, as an effective mechanical energy harvesting technology, provide a promising route to sustainable energy. Developing new smart materials with new nanostructures to be applied into nanogenerator systems is beneficial to the enhancement of output performance and efficiency of nanogenerators. The piezoelectric nanogenerator and triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) were invented by Prof. Zhong Lin Wang in 2006 and 2012, respectively, to convert mechanical energy into electricity. Various TENGs with different structures and functions have been developed, accompanied by gradual increase in the power density and energy conversion efficiency. Nanogenerators have found major applications in the fields of micro/nano energy, self-powered systems/sensors, blue energy, and high-voltage power sources. This Special Issue on “Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerator Systems” aims to cover recent achievements in the fields of smart materials applications and nanogenerator-based self-powered systems.

Dr. Tao Jiang
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Smart materials
New nanomaterials and nanostructures
Materials fabrication and applications
Nanogenerators
Energy harvesting
Self-powered systems/sensors
Blue energy
Energy management and storage

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 2953 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

A High-Performance Flag-Type Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Scavenging Wind Energy toward Self-Powered IoTs

by Yongjiu Zou, Minzheng Sun, Fei Yan, Taili Du, Ziyue Xi, Fangming Li, Chuanqing Zhu, Hao Wang, Junhao Zhao, Peiting Sun and Minyi Xu

Materials 2022, 15(10), 3696; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15103696 - 21 May 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2256

Abstract

Pervasive and continuous energy solutions are highly desired in the era of the Internet of Things for powering wide-range distributed devices/sensors. Wind energy has been widely regarded as an ideal energy source for distributed devices/sensors due to the advantages of being sustainable and renewable. Herein, we propose a high-performance flag-type triboelectric nanogenerator (HF-TENG) to efficiently harvest widely distributed and highly available wind energy. The HF-TENG is composed of one piece of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane and two carbon-coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) membranes with their edges sealed up. Two ingenious internal-structure designs significantly improve the output performance. One is to place the supporting sponge strips between the PTFE and the carbon electrodes, and the other is to divide the PTFE into multiple pieces to obtain a multi-degree of freedom. Both methods can improve the degree of contact and separation between the two triboelectric materials while working. When the pair number of supporting sponge strips is two and the degree of freedom is five, the maximum voltage and current of HF-TENG can reach 78 V and 7.5 μA, respectively, which are both four times that of the untreated flag-type TENG. Additionally, the HF-TENG was demonstrated to power the LEDs, capacitors, and temperature sensors. The reported HF-TENG significantly promotes the utilization of the ambient wind energy and sheds some light on providing a pervasive and sustainable energy solution to the distributed devices/sensors in the era of the Internet of Things. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerators Systems)

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12 pages, 4322 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Flexible Two-Sensor System for Temperature and Bending Angle Monitoring

by Yifeng Mu, Rou Feng, Qibei Gong, Yuxuan Liu, Xijun Jiang and Youfan Hu

Materials 2021, 14(11), 2962; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14112962 - 30 May 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2422

Abstract

A wearable electronic system constructed with multiple sensors with different functions to obtain multidimensional information is essential for making accurate assessments of a person’s condition, which is especially beneficial for applications in the areas of health monitoring, clinical diagnosis, and therapy. In this work, using polyimide films as substrates and Pt as the constituent material of serpentine structures, flexible temperature and angle sensors were designed that can be attached to the surface of an object or the human body for monitoring purposes. In these sensors, changes in temperature and bending angle are converted into variations in resistance through thermal resistance and strain effects with a sensitivity of 0.00204/°C for temperatures in the range of 25 to 100 °C and a sensitivity of 0.00015/° for bending angles in the range of 0° to 150°. With an appropriate layout design, two sensors were integrated to measure temperature and bending angles simultaneously in order to obtain decoupled, compensated, and more accurate information of temperature and angle. Finally, the system was tested by being attached to the surface of a knee joint, demonstrating its application potential in disease diagnosis, such as in arthritis assessment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerators Systems)

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8 pages, 2495 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceCommunication

Polarization-Sensitive Light Sensors Based on a Bulk Perovskite MAPbBr₃ Single Crystal

by Yuan Wang, Laipan Zhu and Cuifeng Du

Materials 2021, 14(5), 1238; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma14051238 - 05 Mar 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2106

Abstract

Organic-inorganic halide perovskites have attracted much attention thanks to their excellent optoelectronic performances. Here, a bulk CH₃NH₃PbBr₃ (MAPbBr₃) single crystal (SC) was fabricated, whose temperature and light polarization dependence was investigated by measuring photoluminescence. The presence of obvious band tail states was unveiled when the applied temperature was reduced from room temperature to 78 K. Temperature dependence of the bandgap of the MAPbBr₃ SC was found to be abnormal compared with those of traditional semiconductors due to the presence of instabilization of out-of-phase tail states. The MAPbBr₃ SC revealed an anisotropy light absorption for linearly polarized light with an anisotropy ratio of 1.45, and a circular dichroism ratio of up to 9% was discovered due to the spin-orbit coupling in the band tail states, exhibiting great polarization sensitivity of the MAPbBr₃ SC for the application of light sensors. These key findings shed light on the development of potential optoelectronic and spintronic applications based on large-scaled organic-inorganic perovskite SCs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerators Systems)

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Review

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24 pages, 8247 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Review of Conductive Carbon Materials for 3D Printing: Materials, Technologies, Properties, and Applications

by Yanling Zheng, Xu Huang, Jialiang Chen, Kechen Wu, Jianlei Wang and Xu Zhang

Materials 2021, 14(14), 3911; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma14143911 - 13 Jul 2021

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 5371

Abstract

Carbon material is widely used and has good electrical and thermal conductivity. It is often used as a filler to endow insulating polymer with electrical and thermal conductivity. Three-dimensional printing technology is an advance in modeling and manufacturing technology. From the forming principle, it offers a new production principle of layered manufacturing and layer by layer stacking formation, which fundamentally simplifies the production process and makes large-scale personalized production possible. Conductive carbon materials combined with 3D printing technology have a variety of potential applications, such as multi-shape sensors, wearable devices, supercapacitors, and so on. In this review, carbon black, carbon nanotubes, carbon fiber, graphene, and other common conductive carbon materials are briefly introduced. The working principle, advantages and disadvantages of common 3D printing technology are reviewed. The research situation of 3D printable conductive carbon materials in recent years is further summarized, and the performance characteristics and application prospects of these conductive carbon materials are also discussed. Finally, the potential applications of 3D printable conductive carbon materials are concluded, and the future development direction of 3D printable conductive carbon materials has also been prospected. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Smart Materials and Self-Powered Nanogenerators Systems)

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