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  • Review Article
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Long-standing and unresolved issues in triboelectric charging

Abstract

Static electrification is among the earliest of the sciences, well known to us all and with widespread and important consequences. Yet, its most basic foundations remain poorly understood. For example, after centuries of research, it is still not clear whether electrons, ions or even bulk material transfer is responsible for the observed charging. Recent work has leveraged the most advanced experimental and theoretical approaches, and has addressed the phenomenon from perspectives of quantum mechanics, surface chemistry, mechanochemistry and statistical physics. While the resulting findings have advanced many aspects of our understanding, they have also led to the discovery of new surprises that we are only beginning to appreciate. This Review addresses both recent advances and their accompanying surprises.

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Fig. 1: Timeline of major developments in the history of triboelectric charging.
Fig. 2: Electron transport in metals and insulators.
Fig. 3: Electronic structures of interacting surfaces.
Fig. 4: Surface functionalizations and triboelectric charging.
Fig. 5: Effects of material strain on triboelectric charging.
Fig. 6: Iterative dipole amplification model.
Fig. 7: Experiments and theory for dipole amplification.
Fig. 8: Experiment and theory for multiple time step charging.

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Acknowledgements

D.L. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant numbers CBET-1235908, CBET-1604909 and DMR-1206480, and T.S. acknowledges support from the NSF Division of Materials Research (DMR) award no. 1404792 and Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) award no. 1804286.

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Lacks, D.J., Shinbrot, T. Long-standing and unresolved issues in triboelectric charging. Nat Rev Chem 3, 465–476 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-019-0115-1

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