Water-Driven Triboelectric Nanogenerators Explained

Driven by the need for greater energy security, cost savings, and environmental concerns, demand for sustainable energy solutions has been growing substantially.

This has led researchers to develop energy-harvesting technologies that convert ambient mechanical energy into electrical power. These technologies have the potential to play a crucial role in applications like power generation, transportation, and electronics.

Among these technologies, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have emerged as a promising means of utilizing mechanical energy from our surroundings, such as motion and vibration.

As a result, many researchers are exploring new materials, designs, and mechanisms to improve energy output, durability, and scalability for real-world use.

Earlier this year, researchers from the University of Alabama demonstrated the use of these devices to generate electricity. The key here was the use of inexpensive, store-bought, sturdy tape along with plastic and aluminum rather than expensive, specially fabricated materials usually used for TENGs.

This improved version of TENG¹ leverages the interaction between the pressure-sensitive acrylic adhesive layer of the tape and its polypropylene backing to generate up to 53 milliwatts of power. The TENG was placed on a vibrating plate, which repeatedly brings the two layers into contact before separating, thereby generating electricity.

Besides creating enough power to light over 350 LED lights and a laser pointer, the device was also integrated into an acoustic sensor and a self-powered wearable.

In another study, an international team of researchers generated electricity using tiny plastic beads² placed close together on a surface, then brought into contact with another surface containing the same beads, producing more electricity than usual.

The size and material of the beads were found to be of importance here, with lead author, Dr. Ignaas Jimidar of VUB, noting, “small changes in material selection can lead to significant improvements in energy generation efficiency,” which creates new possibilities for TENGs in everyday life, without depending on traditional energy sources.

These findings and advances show that researchers are paving the way for transformative applications of TENG technology.

According to Zhong Lin Wang, who was the first to demonstrate a working TENG, triboelectric nanogenerators can be crucial in the push towards energy democratization.

“By harnessing mundane physical actions, they allow electronics to be self-powered, removing the need to rely on centralized power grids. This ‘ambient energy scavenging’ closely aligns with a number of global trends, such as sustainability, personalized healthcare, and the Internet of Things,” said Wang in an interview.³ “TENGs are already viable for low-power, distributed sensing, but their true disruption lies in future large-scale energy harvesting and human-machine synergy.”

How Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs) Convert Motion into Electricity

As research on triboelectric nanogenerators continues to accelerate, recent advances have broadened the scope of what these devices can harvest, from subtle vibrations and body motion to environmental forces such as wind, droplets, and fluid flow.

Now, just how do these triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) work? Well, they convert mechanical energy into electrical energy through contact electrification and electrostatic induction.

Contact electrification involves the transfer of charge that occurs when two surfaces come into contact, with one becoming positively charged and the other negatively charged. Electrostatic induction or electrostatic influence, meanwhile, is a redistribution of electric charge without direct contact.

What’s great about TENGs is their high instantaneous power density, broad material compatibility, and scalability. With its applications spanning across power sources, blue energy, and self-powered sensors, these devices have been successfully integrated into wearable electronics, self-powered sensors, and large-scale energy networks.

But of course, there are still challenges in terms of integration with existing power systems, long-term stability, and charge transfer and conversion efficiency.

There are actually different TENG strategies for harvesting, harnessing, and converting unused or wasted energy effectively. A promising one is the solid-liquid TENG, which, unlike traditional solid-solid TENGs, offers a simple, cost-effective design, improved charge-transfer efficiency, self-healing capabilities, long-term durability, and adaptability to dynamic environments.

Research has also shown that modifying materials and/or liquids, such as hydrophobic surfaces or ionic solutions, can increase triboelectric output and open new avenues for energy harvesting in aqueous and biomedical environments.

Earlier this year, a team of researchers demonstrated the use of a liquid-solid TENG to capture ‘blue energy’ from ocean waves⁴, focusing on overcoming the challenge of low energy output. They did that by optimizing the location of the energy-collecting electrode.

Using a 16-inch clear plastic tube, they created a TENG with a copper foil electrode at one end. The tube was then filled with water to a quarter of its length before the ends were sealed, with a wire connecting the electrode to an external circuit. The device was then placed on a benchtop rocker, which moved the water inside back and forth and generated electrical currents.

This optimized design increased energy conversion by 2.4 times and enabled blinking an array of 35 LEDs.

In another experiment from a few years ago, researchers created a seaweed-like TENG⁵ to demonstrate its potential to reduce reliance on batteries along the coastline.

What they did was coat 1.5-inch by 3-inch strips of two different polymers with a conductive ink, wedging a small sponge between them to create a thin air gap, and then sealing the entire unit to create a TENG. When the device moved up and down in water, the stripe bent back and forth to generate electricity.

The air gap decreased when the TENG was submerged in water at pressures found underwater in coastal zones, but it still generated a current at 100 kPa. They also used a wave tank to showcase that multiple TENGs could be used as a mini underwater power station, supplying energy for 30 LEDs or a miniature blinking lighthouse LED beacon.

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Using Water, Nanoporous Silicon and Pressure for TENG Energy Harvesting

Now, a European team of researchers has turned to a particular application of liquid-solid TENGs: the Intrusion-Extrusion Triboelectric Nanogenerators (IE-TENGs).

This system utilizes non-wetting liquids, i.e., water and a polyethylenimine solution, and nanoporous silicon monoliths.

By taking advantage of materials’ hydrophobic nanoporous architecture, it can generate electricity through the controlled movement of liquid into and out of confined spaces, which causes charge accumulation and redistribution, resulting in fluctuations in current and voltage that can be exploited for energy conversion.

A major advantage of IE-TENGs is that they can overcome a key limitation of traditional TENGs: the restricted contact area between the materials. The use of nanoporous materials with surface areas ranging from hundreds to thousands of square meters per gram enables IE-TENGs to significantly enhance the area-specific energy density and overall performance of these devices.

Nanoporous silicon monoliths, meanwhile, were utilized because they have been widely researched in the medical, optical, electronic, and mechanical fields. They provided the researchers with some major advantages.

This includes doped, i.e., conductive, porous silicon, which enhances charge transfer and collection during the intrusion-extrusion process, thereby improving electrical output efficiency. Nanoporous silicon monoliths can also be turned into hydrophobic surfaces, which are essential for intrusion-extrusion-based energy generation.

The study found porous silicon monoliths to be promising candidates for next-generation IE-TENGs, achieving a three-order-of-magnitude increase in instantaneous power density and a two-order-of-magnitude increase in energy per intrusion-extrusion cycle.

It believes that through continued advancements, IE-TENGs leveraging porous conductive materials could offer a viable alternative for “high-performance, self-sustaining energy harvesting systems” in wearable electronics and industrial energy recovery applications.

The new way to convert mechanical energy into electricity, developed by a team of European scientists, uses water trapped in silicon pores as the working fluid.

In the study called “Triboelectrification during non-wetting liquids intrusion-extrusion in hydrophobic nanoporous silicon monoliths⁶,” they demonstrated the ability of cyclic intrusion and extrusion of water in water-resistant nanoporous silicon monoliths to produce quantifiable electrical power.

The new system, IE-TENG, is developed in a collaborative effort of the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and DESY (the German Electron Synchrotron), the University of Ferrara (Italy), CIC energiGUNE (Spain), Riga Technical University (Latvia), and the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). It uses pressure to repeatedly force water into and out of nanometre-sized pores.

During this process, a charge is produced at the interface between the solid and the liquid. Interestingly, this is a type of frictional electricity we often witness in everyday life, like walking across a water-resistant PVC carpet with shoes on.

It’s a pretty common example of static electricity generated by the triboelectric effect. Another example is touching a door handle and getting a small electric shock. What happens is the buildup of electric charge on your body rapidly discharges through a conductor, like a metal handle.

In the case of the newly developed system, it has achieved an energy conversion efficiency of up to 9%.

“Even pure water, when confined at the nanoscale, can enable energy conversion,” said Professor Patrick Huber, the spokesperson of the BlueMat: Water-Driven Materials Excellence Cluster at the TUHH and DESY, whose aim is to develop a new class of nature-inspired, sustainable materials that change their properties through interaction with water.

Just a few months ago, the Cluster was awarded up to €70 million in research funding, securing support until 2033.

Their approach to harvesting triboelectric energy by utilizing a monolithic nanoporous framework offers an alternative pathway to enhance contact electrification at confined solid-liquid interfaces.

In their work, the researchers have generated electricity in silicon pores solely through friction caused by pressure and water.

“Combining nanoporous silicon with water enables an efficient, reproducible power source — without exotic materials, but just by using the most abundant semiconductor on earth, silicon, and the most abundant liquid, water.”

– Dr. Luis Bartolomé, CIC energiGUNE

The design of the material here was the key, as they needed something that allows the transfer of electricity, has pores of nanometer-scale size, and is repelled by water.

“A crucial step was the development of precisely engineered silicon structures that are simultaneously conductive, nanoporous, and hydrophobic,” as this architecture allowed them to control the motion of water inside the pores, thus making the process of energy conversion stable as well as scalable, explained Dr. Manuel Brinker from the Hamburg University of Technology.

The researchers’ use of monolithic silicon structures, rather than powder-based IE-TENGs relying on loose porous particles, enabled more efficient and reproducible energy harvesting. They also achieved significant improvements in instantaneous power density, which is the power delivered at a particular moment to a medium by a transient current, and energy per cycle.

The team also identified pore size and overall pore volume as the two primary factors governing triboelectric performance, underscoring the importance of optimizing these structural properties.

In addition, their analysis found that higher compression rates enhanced electrical power generation, while the selection of the liquid medium significantly improved triboelectric efficiency. The use of a 0.1% polyethylenimine (PEI) solution, in particular, enabled the team to achieve the highest reported energy conversion efficiency (9%) for solid-liquid TENGs.

With these findings, the team aims to provide a strong foundation for further optimizing solid-liquid triboelectric energy harvesting. The focus of future research, per the researchers, should be on liquid selection, tailoring pore architectures, and surface modifications of silicon monoliths.

The technology, meanwhile, paves the way for applications in self-powered sensing systems, wearable electronics, and environmental energy harvesting.

As per the scientists, it opens the way for “autonomous, maintenance-free sensor systems.”

So, the tech can be applied to water detection and health monitoring in smart garments. It can also be used in haptic robotics, where motion directly generates an electrical signal. Furthermore, the technology is well-suited for applications that require high mechanical pressure, such as vehicle shock absorbers.

“Water-driven materials mark the beginning of a new generation of self-sustaining technologies,” stated co-authors Professor Simone Meloni from the University of Ferrara and Dr. Yaroslav Grosu from CIC energiGUNE.

As we recently covered, such a ‘nature-integrated’ design approach was also adopted to develop a novel water-integrated floating DEG (W-DEG) that leverages water’s electrical and structural properties. The use of ‘free water’ as the building material allowed the W-DEG to have much lower weight and material cost and high potential for land-free applications while showing outstanding scalability and great durability in varying working conditions.

Investing in Energy-Harvesting Semiconductors: The Case for TXN

While these specific silicon monoliths are currently in the research phase, investors looking to capitalize on the underlying trend of low-power energy management should look toward the established semiconductor market, where Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN +0.78%) is a key player, supplying low-power microcontrollers, power-management ICs, and analog/mixed-signal solutions.

The global semiconductor company designs and manufactures analog and embedded processing chips for automotive, enterprise systems, personal electronics, communications equipment, and industrial applications.

Its portfolio is designed to manage power requirements across different voltage levels, including power switches, AC/DC and isolated DC/DC switching regulators, DC/DC switching regulators, voltage references, battery-management solutions, and others.

Texas Instruments boasts a healthy financial position. For Q3 2025, the company reported revenue of $4.74 billion, up 7% sequentially and 14% year over year, with growth across all end markets. Analog revenue grew by 16% YoY, embedded processing by 9%, and the “other” segment by 11%.

On the profitability side, TI generated $1.36 billion in net income and $1.48 in diluted earnings per share for the quarter. Over the trailing 12 months, cash flow from operations totaled $6.9 billion, and free cash flow was $2.4 billion, underscoring the firm’s ability to fund heavy capex and shareholder returns while still investing in R&D.

“Our cash flow from operations of $6.9 billion for the trailing 12 months again underscored the strength of our business model, the quality of our product portfolio, and the benefit of 300mm production.”

– CEO Haviv Ilan

During Q3 2025, TI paid about $1.2 billion in dividends and repurchased approximately $119 million of its own shares, contributing to $6.6 billion returned to shareholders over the past 12 months. In September, the company announced a 4% dividend increase to $1.42 per share, marking 22 consecutive years of dividend growth.

As of late November 2025, TXN trades around the mid-$160s, roughly 25–30% below its 52-week high of $221.69 reached in July 2025. While the stock has pulled back from those highs and delivered negative returns over the past year, the combination of rising analog sales, a 3%+ dividend yield, and long-term buybacks continues to attract income-oriented investors.

Latest Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN) Stock News

Conclusion: Where TENGs Fit in the Future of Clean Power

In the world of energy harvesting, TENGs offer a low-cost, efficient, and sustainable way to convert mechanical energy into electricity. By transforming not just everyday mechanical interactions but also fluid flow and pressure fluctuations into usable electricity, these technologies promise flexible wearables, self-powered sensors, marine-environment energy systems, and more.

While the real-world adoption of TENGs is currently limited, through continued research to refine material architectures, improve efficiency, and integrate TENGs with existing power systems, these devices can finally become viable for broader commercial deployment.

Click here for a list of companies leading the development of nanotechnology.

References

1. Jang, M.-H.; Rabbitte, S. P.; Frendi, A.; Conners, R. T.; Lei, Y.; Wang, G. “Wide Bandwidth High-Power Triboelectric Energy Harvesting by Scotch Tape.” ACS Omega 10, no. 3 (2025): 2778–2789. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.4c08590
2. Jimidar, I. S. M., Mālnieks, K., Sotthewes, K., Sherrell, P. C., & Šutka, A. “Granular Interfaces in TENGs: The Role of Close-Packed Polymer Bead Monolayers for Energy Harvesters.” Small 21, no. 9 (2025): Article 2410155. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202410155
3. Wang, Z. L. “The future of TENGs with Zhong Lin Wang.” Communications Materials 6 (2025): Article 125. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-025-00847-7
4. Zhang, H.; Dai, G.; Luo, Y.; Zheng, T. “Space Volume Effect in Tube Liquid–Solid Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Output Performance Enhancement.” ACS Energy Letters 9, no. 4 (2024): 1431–1439. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.4c00072
5. Wang, Y.; Liu, X.; Wang, Y.; Wang, H.; Wang, H.; Zhang, S. L.; Zhao, T.; Xu, M.; Wang, Z.-L. “Flexible Seaweed-Like Triboelectric Nanogenerator as a Wave Energy Harvester Powering Marine Internet of Things.” ACS Nano 15, no. 10 (2021): 15700–15709. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c05127
6. Bartolomé, L.; Verziaggi, N.; Brinker, M.; Amayuelas, E.; Merchori, S.; Arkan, M. Z.; Eglītis, R.; Šutka, A.; Chorążewski, M. A.; Huber, P.; Meloni, S.; Grosu, Y.; et al. “Triboelectrification during non-wetting liquids intrusion–extrusion in hydrophobic nanoporous silicon monoliths.” Nano Energy 146 (2025): Article 111488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2025.111488