High-Performance Polyimide Aerogel Film-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Trace Liquid Analyzing

• Published in: ACS applied polymer materials 2023-07, Vol.5 (7), p.5466-5473
• Main Authors: Zhou, Qili, Wang, Wen, He, Yu, Li, Zhangcheng, Zhao, Ruolan, Tao, Guangming, Hu, Bin, Hou, Chong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2637-6105; 2637-6105
• DOI: 10.1021/acsapm.3c00802

Aerogels exhibit excellent sensing performance thanks to their high porosity, large specific surface area, and remarkable mechanical property. However, the prevalent aerogel-based analyzers fail to detect liquid in a way of low detection limit, fast response, and good robustness. Here, we have fabricated a polyimide aerogel (PIA) film with porosity up to 98.01% and thickness about 220 μm and built a liquid analyzer with this PIA film as a tribo-negative layer. The liquid analyzer can respond to different liquid droplets on the basis of liquid–solid interaction and the triboelectric effect. Benefitting from the mesoporous structure, high porosity, low thickness, and stable compression performance of the PIA film, the liquid analyzer shows fast response and good robustness for detecting different liquids down to 7 μL. The mechanisms of the analyzer for distinguishing liquids are discussed from the aspects of effective relative permittivity, the interaction between liquid and PIA film, and transfer charge quantity. The trace liquid analyzers based on high-performance PIA films provide support for the development of environmental protection and biochemical sensing and show huge application potential in sensing related areas.