Enhanced Energy Harvesting Performance of a Multiferroic Gadolinium Iron Manganese Oxide-Barium Titanate/Polydimethylsiloxane Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

The increasing demand for self-powered wearable electronics and IoT devices has driven the development of efficient mechanical energy harvesting systems. In this work, a flexible multiferroic nanocomposite-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was fabricated using double perovskite Gd2FeMnO6 (GFMO) and ferroelectric BaTiO3 (BTO) nanoparticles incorporated into a PDMS matrix. The synthesized materials were confirmed to be phase pure by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, while FESEM analysis showed nanoscale particle sizes. The GFMO-PDMS composite showed improved output due to the Villari effect, while the BTO-PDMS composite exhibited enhanced performance due to piezoelectric-triboelectric coupling. The GFMO-BTO-PDMS nanocomposite demonstrated the highest electrical output with an open-circuit voltage of ~132 V at an optimum filler concentration of 15 wt%. The enhanced performance is attributed to the combined effect of triboelectric, piezoelectric, and Villari effects. This indicates the possibility of GFMO-BTO/PDMS nanocomposites as promising materials for flexible energy harvesting and self-powered electronic applications.