In-situ coating wear condition monitoring based on solid-liquid triboelectric nanogenerator and its mechanism study

Various more or less wear-resistant coatings have been developed and used to protect metal substrates. However, the damage caused by wear is still a problem for most coatings. It is of great importance to monitor the wear of coatings in real-time during the applications. Recently reported wear monitoring methods (image processing, luminescent layers and the use of a sensing underlayer) require complex external equipment or additional coating preparation process steps, which limit their applications. As an emerging technology, a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) can convert mechanical energy into electricity, and it has been applied as a self-powered sensor. In this study, a new coating wear monitoring method is developed based on a solid-liquid TENG. The developed TENG generates electric signals corresponding to different wear states, which facilitates easy monitoring of the coating's wear conditions. The results show that the surface composition change caused by wear is the main reason affecting the TENG signal output. The coating-liquid contact-separation motion generates real-time output signals that directly reflect the coating wear states without the need of any additional equipment. This study provides a promising new technology for in-situ coating wear monitoring.