Humidity‐Resistive Triboelectric Nanogenerator Fabricated Using Metal Organic Framework Composite

With its light weight, low cost, and high efficiency, the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is considered a sustainable and renewable energy source for self‐powered or mobile electronics. However, the performance of TENG is seriously affected by humid environment. Here, for the first time, TENG with improved performance under high humidity is obtained by adding HKUST‐1 (Cu3(BTC)2, (BTC = 1,3,5‐benzenetricarboxylate or trimesate)) to polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix. At 10% relative humidity (RH), an effective power (3.17 mW) of the composite TENG based on 5 wt% HKUST‐1 is obtained at a load resistance of 10 MΩ, which is 13 times higher than that of the TENG based on pure PDMS. More importantly, the performance of composite TENG remains constant or becomes higher even under high humidity, while that of conventional TENG dramatically decreases at the same condition. The excellent humidity‐resistive performance comes from the remarkably enhanced electron‐trapping capacity and dielectric constant due to the absorption of HKUST‐1 to water molecules. This work not only demonstrates that a metal organic framework is an effective filler to improve the performance of TENG but also provides a novel strategy to obtain high output properties under highly humid environments by increasing the electron‐trapping capacity and dielectric constant. A high‐performance triboelectric nano‐generator (TENG), especially in highly humid environments, is obtained by adding 5 wt% HKUST‐1 possessing reversible adsorption and desorption behaviors of water molecules in the nanochannels. This work first expands the current materials used for TENGs to metal organic frameworks and provides a novel strategy to improve the poor output performance induced by the high humidity.