A Traditional Chinese Architectural Roof Tile-Inspired Curved Piezoelectric-Triboelectric Hybrid Energy Harvester

Hybrid nanogenerators demonstrate significant potential in extracting water droplet mechanical energy. However, conventional hybrid systems typically employ simple series or parallel integration methods, often overlooking the dynamic morphological evolution of droplets upon impact with the device surface. This oversight generally sacrifices the advantages of one of the units, hindering the synergistic optimization of the overall performance. Inspired by the architecture of ancient Chinese roof tiles, we present a curved piezoelectric-triboelectric hybrid energy harvester. The curved structure not only reduces the effective contact area during the initial droplet impact stage, significantly enhancing the electrical output of the piezoelectric nanogenerator through stress concentration, but also increases the coverage area between the droplet and the triboelectric layer upon full spreading, thereby improving the output performance of the triboelectric nanogenerator. Compared with a planar counterpart, the curved piezoelectric component with engineered surface structure achieves an approximately 2400% increase in short-circuit current, reaching a peak value of 12 µA. In parallel, the curved triboelectric component exhibits a 130% enhancement in both transferred charge and short-circuit current. Finally, we demonstrate its potential application in the protection of ancient architectural heritage. © 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.