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Owing to their structural advantages over bulk polymers, porous 3D substrates possess immense potential in triboelectric energy generation. This work reports the effective effort to fabricate the porous structure of polydimethylsiloxane, also known as the sponge-PDMS, by a simple template method. The sodium chloride salt from commodity product is used to create the 300 μm size of pores within the PDMS elastomeric layers, turning affects to the mechanical deformability of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). The inner face of those pores is composited with the PVDF-HFP particles as a piezoelectric fillers. The presence of those fillers can be confirmed and their distribution within porous PDMS is 3D visualized by the synchrotron radiation X-ray tomography. The spatial distribution of the PVDF-HFP made it possible to fabricate the piezo-embedded macroporous TENG with high output power of 7.84 μW, giving over 2-fold enhancement, compared with the sponge-PDMS and even more when compared with the flat PDMS film under the same mechanical force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work demonstrated the influence of pore morphologies on the mechanical behavior and tribo-electrical performance of fabricated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge. Commercial seasonings with different 3D geometric shapes were used as a sacrificial template to control the pore structure of the PDMS sponge. The result indicated that the softest PDMS sponge was molded by using a sodium chloride (NaCl) crystal template, as indicated by the lowest compressive modulus value. Then, P(VDF–HFP) was incorporated into PDMS prepolymer in order to enhance the charge generation characteristic of PDMS. Besides, the composite 3D structure was revealed using synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy (SRXTM). Interpretation from the SRXTM result confirmed that the porous structure had different pore shapes, i.e. , an octahedral-like shape and a circular-like shape in a particular sponge. By pairing the composite PDMS sponge with an aluminum (Al) plate for the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), the maximum electrical outputs of ~29.9 V and ~0.56 μA for voltage and current, respectively, were detected with loading 50 wt% of P(VDF – HFP). The presented TENG was applied successfully for sensing basic human activities practically, which demonstrated potential applications in wearable electronics. • 3D-PDMS sponges were fabricated with various templates. • The composite P(VDF-HFP)/PDMS sponge generated a high triboelectric performance. • In single-electrode TENG mode, the V OC obtained ~40 V with the power of 25 mW. • The present TENG could sense simple human activities efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]