Cellulose for Sustainable Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are an emerging technology capable of converting the ambient mechanical energy into electricity, promising for complete utilization of the distributed energy to improve the quality of human life. However, realizing material innovation for good trade‐off between the high triboelectric output and environment friendliness remains huge challenge, but it is of great importance for sustainable development of TENGs. Cellulose is a typical natural polymer that promises to address the challenge. Herein, the sustainable TENGs that originate from cellulose and potentially back to the natural world are focused on, realizing on‐spot TENGs. First, the sources, forms, morphologies, structures, and modifications of cellulose are systematically summarized, indicating the commercial and noncommercial cellulose materials’ potential for TENGs’ application. Second, the dominating additive properties of cellulose such as hydrophobicity, self‐cleaning, corrosion resistance, optical transparency, electrical conductivity, and degradability are introduced, which can effectively steer the development of TENGs. Thereafter, the TENGs with tailorable functions enabled by less‐refined cellulose and various physical/chemical modified cellulose are reviewed, as well as plants‐supported on‐spot TENGs with environment adaptivity and transient property, embracing a sustainable future of versatile cellulose to adapt the distributed network of multiscenario TENGs for energy management and information communication.

Sustainable Natural Bio‐Origin Materials for Future Flexible Devices

“…[ 105 ] Particularly, recent research in “green” TENG fabricated with biocompatible materials has become a hot topic, aiming to develop biocompatible power source without producing any harmful substances, which can minimize the potential health risks caused by hazardous wastes. [ 106 ] Compared with synthetic biocompatible polymers, natural bio‐origin materials with large abundance and low cost have been widely employed for the fabrication of TENG ( Table 1 ). The latest research of bio‐origin material‐enabled TENG is summarized as follows.…”

Amino‐Terminated Hyperbranched Polymer‐Based Recyclable Elastic Fibers for a Breathable and Antibacterial Triboelectric Nanogenerator

“…Transient materials that are deposable are important for future recyclable electronics, promising to reduce the e-waste and realize sustainable development. [47][48][49] Herein, the antibacterial elastic fiber membrane shows one more dissolvable merit. As demonstrated in Figure 3f, a dynamic dissolving process of one piece of MPVA/Ag NPs fiber membrane in water was recorded, the fiber membrane can quickly adsorb water within 2 s, followed by fast dissolving in water within 10 s and completely disappeared in the 30 s, the solution could be concentrated easily for recycling and regeneration of the fiber materials.…”

Elastic Fibers/Fabrics for Wearables and Bioelectronics

“…The development of energy harvestors presents an attractive future for distributed energy harvesting and self‐powered utilization, which could be an important supplement or replacement for traditional energy collection devices. [ 233 ] To realize sustained energy utilization around the environment, energy storage modules with the matched electrical and mechanical properties should be developed to improve the all‐in‐one management of the harvested energy.…”