US-20260126411-A1 - Sensing Device and Sensing Method

US20260126411A1US 20260126411 A1US20260126411 A1US 20260126411A1US-20260126411-A1

Abstract

A sensing device includes a robotic hand, an electrode and a triboelectric sensing layer. The robotic hand includes at least one robot finger. One robot finger is integrated with an electrode layer which is functionalized with a triboelectric sensing layer. The triboelectric sensing layer is composed of plurality of nanostructures including Tellurium. The robot hand with triboelectric sensing layer undergoes contact and separation with the target analyte solution having mercury ions which leads to the formation of mercury telluride owing to the highly selective between of mercury ions to the Tellurium surface. After contacting with the target analyte, the electron transfer ability of the nanostructures attached to robot finger is altered. This process of contact electrification causes the induction of electrons to the electrode layer generating the triboelectric output voltage. The triboelectric output voltage is utilized to determine the concentration of mercury ions in the target analyte solution.

Inventors

Zong-Hong Lin
Snigdha Roy Barman
Kuan-Ming Lee

Assignees

NATIONAL TSING HUA UNIVERSITY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20251229
Priority Date: 20220826

Claims (8)

1 . A sensing device, comprising: a robotic hand comprising at least one robot finger; an electrode attached to a surface of the at least one robot finger; and a triboelectric sensing layer functionalized onto the electrode and comprising a plurality of nanostructures, wherein each of the nanostructures comprises Tellurium, and the triboelectric sensing layer undergoes electron transfer with a target analyte solution upon contact; wherein the nanostructures comprising Tellurium chemically react with mercury ions of the target analyte solution to form mercury telluride nanostructures which alter an electron transferring capability of the triboelectric sensing layer and in turn changes a triboelectric output voltage.
2 . The sensing device of claim 1 , further comprising a circuit board electrically connected to the electrode, wherein the circuit board comprises a transmission module, and the transmission module is configured for transmitting the triboelectric output voltage to a user device.
3 . The sensing device of claim 2 , wherein a number of the at least one robot finger is two, the two robot fingers are used simultaneously by electrically connecting the electrode of each of the two robot fingers to the circuit board in order to transmit the triboelectric output voltage to the user device, and the user device obtains the triboelectric output voltage of each of the two robot fingers after contacting the target analyte solution.
4 . The sensing device of claim 2 , wherein the transmission module is a wireless transmission module.
5 . The sensing device of claim 1 , wherein the triboelectric sensing layer is further for contacting a contact liquid.
6 . The sensing device of claim 5 , wherein the contact liquid is a deionized water or an organic solvent.
7 . The sensing device of claim 6 , wherein the contact liquid is acetone.
8 . The sensing device of claim 1 , wherein the nanostructures of the triboelectric sensing layer are hydrophobic.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a divisional U.S. Patent Application No. 18/169,420, filed February 15, 2023, which claims priority to Taiwan Patent Application No. 111132336, filed August 26, 2022, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety. BACKGROUND Technical Field The present disclosure relates to a sensing device and a sensing method. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a sensing device and a sensing method for a chemical analyte. Description of Related Art Internet of things (IoT) has contributed to the advancement of the living standards by transforming the daily activities into parts of intelligent system. Due to its compelling characteristics, IoT has been applied to various fields especially in the fields of healthcare, environmental sensing and security. Recently, the concept of IoT has been applied to the field of robotics to develop robotic platforms which can function and provide feedbacks in real-time in order to implement an effective decision. These improvements pave the way for the development of humanoid robots to mimic the sensation of human beings especially touching and sensing. Biological and chemical threats are still a globally major concern of sampling and sensing materials in a dangerous environment. Thus, it is indispensable to develop a sensing robot for detecting the level of hazardous chemical analyte in the surrounding environment. However, because of the high power consumption, the development is still at the early stage. Using battery makes the devices bulky and causes environmental problems, which usually shortens the lifetime of the devices, limiting its durability, portability and safety of a wearable sensing device. Although there are various chemical sensing methods, it is hard to integrate the existing methodologies with the robotic systems. Thus, the invention of robotic chemical sensors which can mimic the function of touching and sensing of human beings is important to these developments. As a result, a next generation self-powered chemical sensor is urgently needed to be developed so that the chemical sensor can analyze the surrounding environment by itself and reduce the component of human-interference. The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been developed as a clean and renewable technology which can convert the mechanical energy to the electric energy. TENG depends on the phenomenon of contact electrification and electrostatic induction which causes the two materials to contact with each other and produces surface charges by friction. Until now, a solid-solid triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) for detection of various chemical analytes and biological molecules has been reported. However, producing the solid-solid TENS brings several challenges including long term stability, lifetime and sensitivity. To overcome these challenges, developers try to use liquids as the contact materials in TENS because the liquids can be obtained easily, and are abundant, economical and inexhaustible. Moreover, the liquid layer can be used as a strong lubricant to realize a stable interaction and improve a reliability of the sensor. Thus, a solid-liquid TENS (S-L TENS) is a promising alternative of building a self-powered and stable nanosensor for chemical sensing. Recently, TENG based on solid-liquid contact electrification has been studied for harvesting energy, but only few researchers reported TENG based on solid-liquid contact electrification for the detection of chemical analytes. The highly automatic and self-powered chemical sensor can perform the rapid on-site detection of the analytes without placing the human user at the risk of contamination and be useful for environmental monitoring and safety application. However, the integration of the chemical sensor with the automated robot is limited by poor selectivity and sensitivity, and further improvement is crucially needed. SUMMARY According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a sensing device includes a robotic hand, an electrode and a triboelectric sensing layer. The robotic hand includes at least one robot finger. The electrode is attached to a surface of the at least one robot finger. The triboelectric sensing layer is functionalized onto the electrode and includes a plurality of nanostructures, wherein each of the nanostructures includes Tellurium, and the triboelectric sensing layer undergoes electron transfer with a target analyte solution upon contact. The nanostructures including Tellurium chemically react with mercury ions of the target analyte solution to form mercury telluride nanostructures which alter the electron transferring capability of the triboelectric sensing layer and in turn change a triboelectric output voltage. According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a sensing method includes a sensing step and a triboelectric output voltage generating step. In the sensing step, at least one robot finger contacts