Triboelectric Nanogenerators Driven Self‐Powered Electrochemical Processes for Energy and Environmental Science

TLDR

Triboelectric nanogenerators, discovered in 2012, have enabled self‑powered micro‑scale energy harvesting and electrochemical processes, offering advantages for sensors, portable devices, and large‑scale environmental applications. This review surveys recent advances in TENGs for high‑performance energy conversion and self‑powered electrochemical applications such as water splitting, seawater desalination, air pollution cleanup, organic pollutant degradation, and heavy‑metal ion collection. The authors compile and analyze TENG designs and their integration into self‑powered electrochemical systems for energy conversion and environmental remediation.

Abstract

Ever since the discovery of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) by Wang's group in January 2012, various breakthroughs have been achieved in the fundamental mechanisms of TENG as well as the demonstrated self‐powered systems. TENG has shown many advantages in micro‐scale energy harvesting for applications in sensors and portable devices. As a self‐sufficient power source, TENG can be used in conjunction with electrochemical processes as self‐powered electrochemistry without the use of external power source. This review mainly focuses on the updated progress in TENGs for both high performance energy conversion and self‐powered electrochemical systems in application such as water splitting, sea water desalination, air pollution cleaning, degradation of organic pollutant, collecting of heavy metal ions and many more. The idea of performing electrochemistry without using an external power could be useful for large‐scale application in environmental science.