Metal-organic frameworks-based triboelectric nanogenerator powered visible light communication system for wireless human-machine interactions

Abstract

We propose a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) nanocrystal decorated electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber as an efficient triboelectric positive material for the high-performance triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and demonstrate a self-powered visible light communication (VLC) system for wireless human-machine interactions. The PAN@ZIF-8 nanofibers provide a higher effective contact surface area that can contribute to the improvement of the total amount of generated charges. This can enable the energy harvesting performance of the PAN@ZIF-8 based TENG (PZ-TENG) to be increased more than 3 times compared to their individual PAN nanofibers and ZIF-8 crystal based TENG devices. Furthermore, we develop a PZ-TENG driven self-powered VLC system and utilize it for the wireless control of home appliances and text messaging systems. 3-bit binary codes are designed with two different mechanical activities (clicking '0 ' and flapping '1 ') for secure and wireless control of the home appliances (Fan, Humidifier, Bell, and Lamp) and to send a text message "HI DGU" on a mobile phone. The designed self-powered VLC system with advanced coding concepts can further enable remote personal identification, security defense, and smart home authentication and monitoring applications.