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Updated: May 7, 2026

Investigating the Potential of Singly Curved Thin Piezoelectric Transducers for Energy Harvesting and Structural Health Monitoring
Published on: November 14, 2025
Triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting wind energy and as self-powered wind vector sensor system
Ya Yang1, Guang Zhu, Hulin Zhang
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Abstract:
We report a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that plays dual roles as a sustainable power source by harvesting wind energy and as a self-powered wind vector sensor system for wind speed and direction detection. By utilizing the wind-induced resonance vibration of a fluorinated ethylene-propylene film between two aluminum foils, the integrated TENGs with dimensions of 2.5 cm × 2.5 cm × 22 cm deliver an output voltage up to 100 V, an output current of 1.6 μA, and a corresponding output power of 0.16 mW under an external load of 100 MΩ, which can be used to directly light up tens of commercial light-emitting diodes. Furthermore, a self-powered wind vector sensor system has been developed based on the rationally designed TENGs, which is capable of detecting the wind direction and speed with a sensitivity of 0.09 μA/(m/s). This work greatly expands the applicability of TENGs as power sources for self-sustained electronics and also self-powered sensor systems for ambient wind detection.
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