Rakesh Vaid

TITLE:

Polystyrene-Graphene/PDMS- Graphene based Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG) for Future Energy Harvesting Devices

ABSTRACT:

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) have emerged as an alternative renewable energy solution owing to its potential ability to convert mechanical energy into electricity by harvesting energy from ambient sources such as human motions and vibrations, wind and waves and so many others making them suitable for IoT based electronic devices. Herein, we report the fabrication of a TENG based on Polystyrene (PS) with Graphene/PDMS (Polydimethyl Siloxane)-Graphene as the main friction layer while Aluminum/Copper/Stainless steel has been used as other triboelectric layer in PS-TENG devices. The polymer layers were synthesized using the spin coating method whereas the metallic layers were fabricated using the thermal evaporation/e-beam method. In fabricated TENG has been designed using drop-cast technique and operated in vertical contact-separation mode. When exposed to a force by tapping through hand, the fabricated TENG devices produced maximum open-circuit voltage of about 60V. The fabricated device layers were characterized both physically and electrically where the physical characteristics include Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) while the electrical characteristics includes voltage vs. time graphs. The fabricated TENG device was used to power up to 10 LEDs and low-power electronic devices, such as a digital clock and calculator. These findings also demonstrated Polystyrene has an enormous potential as a triboelectric material, which is still largely untapped despite its appropriate placement in the triboelectric series. This presentation will also cover various TENG devices fabricated in our lab along with the detailed methodology for their fabrication and synthesis. Keywords: Polystyrene (PS); Stainless steel (SS); Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs); Polydimethyl Siloxane (PDMS); Energy harvesting.

BIO:

Dr. Rakesh Vaid is presently Professor at the Department of Electronics and Director of the Poonch Campus, University of Jammu, J&K, India. He was a Fulbright Fellow (FNIEAS-2022) at the George Washington University USA; Senior member of IEEE and EDS (USA) and Fellow of IETE (India). Prof. Vaid has served as: Head, Dept. of Electronics, Univ of Jammu (2017-2020); Vice Chairman of IEEE EDS Delhi chapter (2022-present); Chairman IETE Jammu Centre (2014-2018). He was awarded University Gold Medal by University of Kashmir-1989 and Young scientist fellowship by J&K Council of Sc. & Tech in 1999. Dr. Vaid has more than 100 publications to his credit in national/ international journals and conference proceedings. His area of research includes Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG); Nano electronics; high k dielectrics; MOS capacitor & solar cell etc. He has successfully guided 08 Ph.D. and 06 M. Phil students. He has successfully completed major research projects sponsored by UGC & SERB, besides completed five medium term projects under INUP program sponsored by CEN, IIT Bombay. Dr Vaid has presented his research in various international conferences with in India and abroad such as MIEL-2006 (Belgrade-Serbia), ICMNT-2006 (Algeria), Nano today 2013 (Singapore), MNE 2014 (Lausanne- Switzerland), 227th ECS meeting 2015 (Chicago-USA), 231st ECS meeting 2017 (New-Orleans, USA), University of Manchester, UK (June 2017), 233rd ECS meeting 2018 (Seattle-USA), IMEC (Leuven-Belgium- September 2019), IEEE MIEL 2019 (Nis-Serbia), 241st ECS meeting 2022 (Vancouver-Canada), University of Tokyo (Japan 2023), IEEE LAEDC 2023 (Puebla-Mexico); NJIT (New Jersey, USA (2024) & IEEE LAEDC 2024 (Guatemala City), besides visited many universities such as Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge in USA, UK and Europe.