Screening nanogenerator based on the screening effect of water layer

Electrostatics was considered to be a negative effect a long time ago, people never used frictional electrification to collect kinetic energy and convert it into electrical energy until the invention of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). Generally speaking, triboelectrification is susceptible to humidity, but this influence mechanism has not yet been fully figured out. In fact, clarifying the physics will be conducive to the design of new devices. In this work, we sort out the influencing mechanisms of humidity on TENG, and differentiate them by their characteristic time. Based on this analysis and the traditional non-contact nanogenerator structure, a screening nanogenerator is designed utilizing the screening effect of water layer. The effects of screening boards in different locations on the system are studied. Surprisingly, the outside screening board can also influence system. Therefore, an outside screening sensor is designed for detecting the charge state of matter and monitoring water levels. This work builds a new mode for further understanding about interaction principle of humidity and surface charge, and presents a different strategy to design humidity-resistant TENG. Meanwhile, the research frontier of many-body charge interaction based on non-Landau system is raised, hoping to inspire more scholars. The electric field component in the z direction was shown in the Graphical Abstract. We took the vertical upward direction as the positive direction. The red (or blue) region represented the part where the electric field intensity was larger than (or less than) zero. The darker the color, the larger the field intensity. According to the calculation results, the electric field near the electrode 2 changed when the outside screening plate existed. For example, the electric field strength E ZB at point B was increased by 194 %, and the electric field strength E ZA at point A does not change significantly, that showed the influence of the outside screening on the surface charge density of the electrodes. • The analysis of humidity influence mechanism is realized based on time domain analysis. • The screening mechanism in the short-term effect dominates, and we design a new type of neutral screening nanogenerator. • The outside screening mechanism indicates that traditional electrical neutrality hypothesis may have certain limitations. • We propose to call the area of water and medium the 'non-Landau dielectric' problem based on outside screening mechanism.