Highly sensitive self-powered pressure and strain sensor based on crumpled MXene film for wireless human motion detection

Recently, pressure/strain sensor based on triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has gained great attentions for monitoring daily health status and robotic research fields, because of their simple device structures and self powered feature. However, higher sensitivity and stretchability are still demanded for satisfying the practical applications. In this work, a self-powered pressure and strain sensor was achieved by utilizing crumpled MXene film as the single-electrode mode TENG. Benefiting from the reconfigurable behavior of the crumpled structure, the MXene TENG showed a maximum areal strain and linear tensile ratio of 2150% and 400%, respectively. Meanwhile, because of the enlarged contact area between triboelectric layers, the output power density of the MXene TENG with micro-crumples was highly improved by 36 times. Therefore, the as prepared sensor exhibited excellent sensitivity of 2.35 V kPa(-1) under pressures from 0.3 to 1.0 kPa, which is superior to majority of the reported sensors based on tribo-/piezo-electricity. In addition, the sensor can be easily attached to human joints to capture and collect the complicated movement signals. By combining with Bluetooth transmission technology, wireless real-time monitoring was realized through transmitting human movement signals to a mobile phone App.

Automated summary

By utilizing crumpled MXene film as the single-electrode mode TENG, a self-powered pressure and strain sensor with high sensitivity and stretchability was achieved.