Assessment of Triboelectricity in Colossal-Surface-Area-Lanthanum Oxide Nanocrystals Synthesized via Low-Temperature Hydrothermal Process

Abstract Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have marked their applications in various fields, most importantly, in medical devices. The electrical output of the TENGs mainly concentrated on parameters such as electrode separation distance, applied mechanical pressure, surface charge density, and overlapping surface-area. The surface-area of the active layer in TENGs plays a crucial role. Given this, the present contribution is the first report on the utilization of lanthanum oxide (La2O3) as an active material with a large surface-area (~72.33 m2/g) in TENGs. The nanocrystals of La2O3 have been successfully embedded into TENGs architecture through a high-quality screen-printed film with a Teflon-counter surface. The in-house test-rig of TENGs resulted in an output open-circuit voltage of 120 V and a short-circuit current of 23.7 μA. Further, the maximum power density is 7.125 W/m2 at an external load resistance of 30 MΩ. These results suggest that La2O3 is a suitable contender in various self-powered devices.