Dr. Liu Sheng’s Academic Paper Published in Nano Energy

Recently, Dr. Liu Sheng and Dr. Zou Hongxiang, from Professor Wei Kexiang’s team at the School of Mechanical Engineering, made significant strides in the field of flexible smart sensors and their self-powered applications. Their research titled “Flexible staircase triboelectric nanogenerator for motion monitoring and gesture recognition” has been published in the prestigious international energy journal Nano Energy (SCI Q1, IF=17.6), with Dr. Liu as the lead author and Dr. Zou as the corresponding author. Our school, Hunan Institute of Engineering, is the sole affiliation.

The research focuses on developing novel flexible sensing materials and their applications in self-powered devices under the dual carbon goals. They introduced a staircase-like flexible frictional nanogenerator (SAP-TENG) assembled from functionalized nanoparticle-based flexible composite films. Nano-particles, acting as charge trapping sites, significantly enhance the frictional surface charge density and dielectric polarization of the flexible composite films, thereby boosting the TENG’s electrical output. The modified flexible composite film exhibits a maximum power output 11.5 times higher than the unmodified film. The SAP-TENG, constructed from high-performance composite films, demonstrates high stability, durability, and self-recovery capability. It can be attached to human joints like fingers or wrists to monitor human motion states. Additionally, they developed a smart glove gesture recognition system based on SAP-TENG. By analyzing signal features from the output waveform using machine learning techniques, they achieved precise gesture recognition.

Dr. Liu’s research spans fundamental and applied studies in functional materials and devices, with leadership in national natural science foundation projects. He has authored over 20 academic papers (including 6 SCI Q1 papers) in esteemed journals such as Chinese Science and holds 10 patents.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12172127) and key scientific research projects from the Hunan Provincial Department of Education (22A0515, 21A0463).

(Reviewed by Wang Jiayi, Gong Qian)