Abstract:
The fluid mechanical energy including air kinetic energy and liquids kinetic energy in the environment is one of the most abundant and important clean energy. Through different energy harvesting technologies such as electromagnetic power generation technology and piezoelectric energy harvesting technology, the aforementioned clean fluid energy can be successfully converted into electrical energy and used by human. Since the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was invented in 2012 year from the research lab leaded by Zhonglin Wang, the triboelectric nanogenerator has become one of the most important energy harvesting technology and has been applied to fluid mechanical energy harvesting. This paper comprehensively reviews the current research status of energy harvesting by fluidic energy harvesting TENG (FEH-TENG). The principle of charge transfer between triboelectric materials in FEH-TENG and the basic working mode is introduced. On harvesting air kinetic energy, as the mechanism of Flow induced vibrations (such as vortex-induced vibration, gallop, flutter, and wake galloping, etc.) can effectively transfer fluidic energy into mechanical energy, which is quite proper in designing the energy harvesting structure, in this work, the research progress and various energy harvesting structures of FEH-TENG in wind energy and flow-induced vibration energy harvesting are summarized. In the aspect of liquid kinetic energy harvesting, the research work of FEH-TENG utilized in wave and raindrop energy harvesting is also summarized. Furthermore, the research progress of the hybrid energy harvesting system based on FEH-TENG and optimization of triboelectric materials in improving the energy harvesting efficiency of FEH-TENG has been summarized. Then, the application of FEH-TENG in different engineering fields is introduced. Finally, the current existing problems of the FEH-TENG while collecting the fluid mechanical energy in harvesting are discussed and some perspectives for the future development of FEH-TENG are provided. This work is helpful to promote the development of FEH-TENG in the research fields of fluid mechanical energy harvesting and promote the understanding of relevant researchers in this research fields.