Durable and High-Performance Triboelectric Nanogenerator Based on an Inorganic Triboelectric Pair of Diamond-Like-Carbon and Glass

The long-term durability of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) remains a main challenge for practical applications because of inevitable material abrasion and wear, especially for sliding TENGs. Herein, an inorganic triboelectric pair composed of diamond-like carbon (DLC) and glass with excellent durability and triboelectric output for sliding-mode TENGs is proposed. This triboelectric pair possesses a low coefficient of friction and little abrasion and accordingly excellent durability (>500 000 cycles). Moreover, compared with the traditional copper-polytetrafluoroethylene (Cu-PTFE) TENG with maximum transferred charges of 50 nC, those of the DLC-glass TENG reaches 141 nC. Due to the low-friction and high hardness of the triboelectric pair, the output quickly recovers after simply cleaning wear debris. The DLC-glass TENG demonstrates an output power density of 530 mW m⁻² and a fourfold faster capacitor charging speed than the Cu-PTFE TENG. Compared to the reported durable TENGs via structure optimization and interface lubrication, the DLC-glass TENG shows higher outputs and simpler structure. This DLC-glass pair structure is also introduced into a spherical TENG for blue energy harvesting with excellent durability. The inorganic triboelectric pair with excellent mechanical durability and electrical performance proposed in this work shows huge prospects for practical applications of TENGs.