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

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.