NEWS RELEASES

Building renewable energy plants to meet our energy needs is critical to transitioning away from fossil fuels and tackling global warming — but how do people who live near these plants feel about them? Reports of community opposition have been used against renewable energy. Scientists surveyed communities across the US living within three miles — about an hour’s walk — of solar energy and found that 82% of local residents would support or are neutral towards more solar energy plants in their local area. 

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have gained recognition for their potential to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, making them attractive for applications in healthcare, robotics, and human-device interfaces. However, many TENG devices rely on fluorinated polymers for high charge generation and involve complex fabrication processes, which limit their practicality and environmental sustainability. Here, we developed an eco-friendly composite of poly (vinyl butyral-co-vinyl alcohol-co-vinyl acetate) (PVBVA) and Ti₃C₂Tₓ MXene for extrusion printing onto aluminum foil substrates, enabling the additive manufacturing of TENGs. Experimental results indicate that integrating 5.5 mg mL^-1 of MXene (P-MX 5.5) into PVBVA resulted in a power density of 760 mW·m⁻², with simultaneous improvements in open-circuit voltage (129 %) and short-circuit current (250 %), demonstrating enhanced charge transfer efficiency. Beyond aluminum foil-based devices, we further explored the fully printed P-MX 5.5 TENG by utilizing silver ink electrodes, eliminating the need for aluminum foil. This fully printed, flexible TENG was successfully used for real-time human motion sensing, demonstrating its ability to detect activities such as walking, running, knee bending, and jumping. Collectively, our additively manufactured and sustainable PVBVA-MXene TENG composites, including both aluminum-based and fully printed versions, show promise for future energy harvesters, sensors, wearable electronics, healthcare, and robotic applications.

Lightweight energy storage devices are essential for developing compact wearable and distributed electronics, and additive manufacturing offers a scalable, low-cost approach to fabricating such devices with complex geometries. However, additive manufacturing of high-performance, on-demand energy storage devices remains challenging due to the need for stable, multifunctional nanomaterial inks. Herein, the development of 2-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide (Ti₃C₂T_x MXene) ink that is compatible with aerosol jet printing for energy storage applications is demonstrated. The developed MXene ink demonstrates long-term chemical and physical stability, ensuring consistent printability and achieving high-resolution prints (≈45 µm width lines) with minimal overspray. The high-resolution aerosol-jet printed MXene supercapacitor achieves an areal capacitance of 122 mF cm^-2 and a volumetric capacitance of 611 F cm^-3, placing them among the highest-performing printed supercapacitors reported to date. These findings highlight the potential of aerosol jet printing with MXene inks for on-demand, scalable, and cost-effective fabrication of printed electronic and electrochemical devices.