Quantifying and understanding the triboelectric series of inorganic non-metallic materials

Haiyang Zou, Litong Guo, Hao Xue, Ying Zhang, Xiaofang Shen, Xiaoting Liu, Peihong Wang, Xu He, Guozhang Dai, Peng Jiang, Haiwu Zheng, Binbin Zhang, Cheng Xu and Zhong Lin Wang ()
Additional contact information
Haiyang Zou: Georgia Institute of Technology
Litong Guo: Georgia Institute of Technology
Hao Xue: Georgia Institute of Technology
Ying Zhang: Georgia Institute of Technology
Xiaofang Shen: Xiamen University
Xiaoting Liu: Xiamen University
Peihong Wang: Georgia Institute of Technology
Xu He: Georgia Institute of Technology
Guozhang Dai: Georgia Institute of Technology
Peng Jiang: Georgia Institute of Technology
Haiwu Zheng: Georgia Institute of Technology
Binbin Zhang: Georgia Institute of Technology
Cheng Xu: Georgia Institute of Technology
Zhong Lin Wang: Georgia Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Contact-electrification is a universal effect for all existing materials, but it still lacks a quantitative materials database to systematically understand its scientific mechanisms. Using an established measurement method, this study quantifies the triboelectric charge densities of nearly 30 inorganic nonmetallic materials. From the matrix of their triboelectric charge densities and band structures, it is found that the triboelectric output is strongly related to the work functions of the materials. Our study verifies that contact-electrification is an electronic quantum transition effect under ambient conditions. The basic driving force for contact-electrification is that electrons seek to fill the lowest available states once two materials are forced to reach atomically close distance so that electron transitions are possible through strongly overlapping electron wave functions. We hope that the quantified series could serve as a textbook standard and a fundamental database for scientific research, practical manufacturing, and engineering.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15926-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15926-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15926-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().