Molecularly designed cellulose materials for triboelectric applications

Cellulose’s insulating properties are today utilized in transformers and other electrical applications.

However, as being an outspoken dielectric material further use of cellulose in triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) is foreseen.

In TENGs wasted mechanical energy like small vibrations is converted to static electricity created from interfacial polarization occurring after contact-friction between materials. This could be widely utilized in different battery-less applications, e.g.

IoT-sensors and self-sufficient pacemakers as well as in air filters with low pressure drop for safe and energy-efficient particle capturing to mitigate diseases.

We have discovered that regenerated cellulose II films cast from dissolved cellulose is particularly efficient as triboelectric material. In a recent article we show the highest triboelectric power output ever reported for cellulose. Paper and nanocelluloses (cellulose I) are not found as efficient.

Our main objectives and aims are to understand and explain what regulates the cellulose II triboelectricity, and how this can be further developed.

A new PhD-student will be employed in the project and supported by a group of experienced researchers with scientific competences in cellulose technology, physical chemistry and materials chemistry and physics.

Especially important methods used are broadband dielectric spectroscopy, XRD, and AFM/EFM/KPFM techniques to investigate cellulose’s dielectric properties and interfacial polarization.