Flexible and environment-friendly regenerated cellulose/MoS2 nanosheet nanogenerators with high piezoelectricity and output performance

Flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators for energy harvesting are getting more and more attention nowadays by converting the mechanical energy to electric energy. Here, an environment-friendly piezoelectric nanogenerator based on the regenerated cellulose (RC)/MoS2 nanosheet nanocomposite successfully exhibited a relative high output voltage of 2 V and current of 150 nA under slight press which were 5 and 7.5 times higher than those of the neat RC film, i.e. 0.4 V and 20 nA, respectively. In particular, the MoS2 nanosheets were obtained through a simple, facile and low-cost pathway by mechanical exfoliation in triethanolamine. The nanocomposite film with MoS2 nanosheets content of 4% exhibited a high piezoelectric constant (d33) of 19 pC/N, which was 6.3 times higher than that of the neat RC film (i.e. 3 pC/N). Thus, the RC/MoS2 piezoelectric nanogenerator has great potential applications in the fields of energy harvester, sensors and is of great significance to environment protection.