Spontaneous ordering of identical materials into a triboelectric series

Juan Carlos Sobarzo (), Felix Pertl, Daniel M. Balazs, Tommaso Costanzo, Markus Sauer, Annette Foelske, Markus Ostermann, Christian M. Pichler, Yongkang Wang, Yuki Nagata, Mischa Bonn and Scott Waitukaitis
Additional contact information
Juan Carlos Sobarzo: Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Felix Pertl: Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Daniel M. Balazs: Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Tommaso Costanzo: Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Markus Sauer: TU Wien
Annette Foelske: TU Wien
Markus Ostermann: Centre for Electrochemistry and Surface Technology
Christian M. Pichler: Centre for Electrochemistry and Surface Technology
Yongkang Wang: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Yuki Nagata: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Mischa Bonn: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Scott Waitukaitis: Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Nature, 2025, vol. 638, issue 8051, 664-669

Abstract: Abstract When two insulating, neutral materials are contacted and separated, they exchange electrical charge1. Experiments have long suggested that this ‘contact electrification’ is transitive, with different materials ordering into ‘triboelectric series’ based on the sign of charge acquired2. At the same time, the effect is plagued by unpredictability, preventing consensus on the mechanism and casting doubt on the rhyme and reason that series imply3. Here we expose an unanticipated connection between the unpredictability and order in contact electrification: nominally identical materials initially exchange charge randomly and intransitively, but—over repeated experiments—order into triboelectric series. We find that this evolution is driven by the act of contact itself—samples with more contacts in their history charge negatively to ones with fewer contacts. Capturing this ‘contact bias’ in a minimal model, we recreate both the initial randomness and ultimate order in numerical simulations and use it experimentally to force the appearance of a triboelectric series of our choosing. With a set of surface-sensitive techniques to search for the underlying alterations contact creates, we only find evidence of nanoscale morphological changes, pointing to a mechanism strongly coupled with mechanics. Our results highlight the centrality of contact history in contact electrification and suggest that focusing on the unpredictability that has long plagued the effect may hold the key to understanding it.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08530-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:638:y:2025:i:8051:d:10.1038_s41586-024-08530-6

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08530-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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