Self-Powered Triboelectric Ethanol Sensor Based on CuO-Doped Electrospun PVDF Fiber with Enhanced Sensing Performance

Electrospinning techniques have been widely applied in diverse applications, such as biocompatible membranes, energy storage systems, and triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), with the capability to incorporate other functional materials to achieve specific purposes. Recently, gas sensors incorporating doped semiconducting materials fabricated by electrospinning have been extensively investigated. TENGs, functioning as self-powered energy sources, have been utilized to drive gas sensors without external power supplies. Herein, a self-powered triboelectric ethanol sensor (TEES) is fabricated by integrating a TENG and an ethanol gas sensor into a single device. The proposed TEES exhibits a significantly improved response time and lower detection limit compared to published integrated triboelectric sensors. The device achieves an open-circuit voltage of 51.24 V at 800 rpm and a maximum short-circuit current of 7.94 μA at 800 rpm. Owing to the non-contact freestanding operating mode, the TEES shows no significant degradation after 240,000 operational cycles. Compared with previous studies that integrated TENGs and ethanol sensors, the proposed TEES demonstrated a marked improvement in sensing performance, with a faster response time (6 s at 1000 ppm) and a lower limit of detection (10 ppm). Furthermore, ethanol detection is enabled by modulating the gate terminal of an IRF840 metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), which controls the illumination of a light-emitting diode (LED). The LED is extinguished when the electrical output decreases below the setting value, allowing for the discrimination of intoxicated states. These results suggest that the TEES provides a promising platform for self-powered, high-performance ethanol sensing.