MoS₂-doped polyvinyl alcohol nanofiber films via electrospinning for high-performance triboelectric nanogenerators

Abstract

Electrospinning enables the fabrication of nanofiber films with large active surface area, high porosity, and controllable filler orientation, offering distinct advantages for fabricating high-performance triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). Here, we develop MoS₂-doped electrospun polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films for TENG fabrication and reveal the underlying mechanisms of their enhanced triboelectric performance. Compared with spin-coated films, electrospun films intrinsically deliver higher output due to their fibrous morphology, while incorporation of MoS₂ nanosheets further improves the performance. TENGs with the optimized 2 wt.% MoS₂-PVA electrospun film reached 994.0 V, 111.0 mA·m^-2, and 136.3 μC·m^-2, corresponding to 3.8, 3.8, and 3.0 fold enhancements over the spin-coated pristine PVA TENG. Mechanistic studies by experiments and theoretical analysis showed that this remarkable enhancement arises from the combined effects of morphology-driven enlargement of effective contact area, MoS₂-induced surface charge modulation, and nanosheet alignment-induced piezoelectric polarization. Detailed material characterizations, COMSOL simulations, and molecular dynamic calculations provide quantitative and atomistic insights into these contributions. These results establish a coherent structure-property-performance relationship and provide design rules for durable, biocompatible, and high-output TENGs, highlighting their promise for wearable energy harvesting and self-powered sensing applications.

Keywords

Triboelectric nanogenerator / electrospinning / MoS₂ nanosheets / polyvinyl alcohol / surface potential / wearable energy harvesting

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