Study of wind energy harvesting based on rolling bearing type triboelectric nanogenerator

This research developed a novel rolling bearing type triboelectric generator (RB-TENG) designed to efficiently harvest wind energy across a broad spectrum of wind speeds. This generator consists of a column stator shell made of rigid transparent resin. The inside of the stator is open with a circular track affixed with four pairs of copper electrodes, which rub against PTFE balls, using the independent layer operating mode of the triboelectric nanogenerator, due to the use of rolling friction pairs with the collection of a wide range of wind speeds, as low as 2.5 m/s wind speed can be collected. RB-TENG uses rolling friction instead of sliding to extend its service life. The experimental results show that within the wind speed range of 2.5 m/s to 8 m/s, the output performance of RB-TENG increases randomly with the increase of wind speed, and the numerical growth is not very significant after the wind speed of 6 m/s. The effective power density measured at a wind speed of 8 m/s was 5.07 mW/m(2). Furthermore, experiments validate the RB-TENG's capability to power small appliances and its potential applicability in sea farms. It provides a viable solution to reducing reliance on fossil fuels and offers a multi-purpose strategy based on wind energy.