GRAPHERGIA landed last week in the Japanese city of Matsue. Our partner, Philippe Basset, Professor at ESIEE Paris – Université Gustave Eiffel, and Director of the ESYCOM Lab, represented our project at the 20th International Symposium on Electrets (ISE20), held under the auspices of the IEEE.
This event that brings together the global academic community focused on electret materials, a type of non-conductive material that traps electrical charges, and their applications, was attended by approximately 100 participants and a select group of six exhibitors.
GRAPHERGIA’s Talk at ISE20: “Conditioning Systems for Tribo-Electret Kinetic Energy Harvesters”.
Among the distinguished contributors to ISE20 was Professor Philippe Basset, invited as a Plenary Speaker, delivering a 45-minute talk entitled “Conditioning Systems for Tribo-electret Kinetic Energy Harvesters” in the morning of 3 September 2025 during the Plenary Talk 3.
His presentation explored the conditioning and characterisation of tribo-electret systems, a novel class of energy harvesters which are central to GRAPHERGIA’s objectives. These systems exploit triboelectric contact between at least two specially designed graphene-containing textiles to generate and trap electrical charges. When integrated within variable-capacitance structures, these tribo-electrets can convert mechanical motion, such as body movement, into useful electrical energy, powering self-sustaining sensors for applications ranging from smart textiles to wearable electronics.
“As part of the GRAPHERGIA project, we are developing strategies to optimise energy extraction from triboelectric kinetic energy harvesters made from graphene-containing textiles, as well as a precise test bench for their characterisation,” said Professor Basset. “This work is of interest for all types of electrets. In addition, several presentations at the ISE20 conference focused on textile TENG, such as that by the famous Professor Pool See LEE of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, who has worked on flexible sensors for smart textiles based on the triboelectric effect.”
More about ISE20: The 20th International Symposium on Electrets
ISE20, celebrated on 1-5 September 2025 in Matsue (Japan) in Kunibiki Messe (Shimane Prefectural Convention Center), provided an excellent platform for knowledge exchange and reinforced the growing interest in textile-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). The relevance of GRAPHERGIA’s research was underlined by the increasing number of contributions in this field, particularly those related to flexible, wearable energy harvesting technologies.
Participation in ISE20 has helped to strengthen GRAPHERGIA’s academic visibility and foster potential future collaborations within the electret research community. The project continues to push the boundaries of sustainable, textile-integrated energy solutions, helping lay the groundwork for the next generation of energy-autonomous smart fabrics.