A novel triboelectric nanogenerator based on only food packaging aluminium foils

Abstract

The rapid increase of food packaging waste is a significant cause of air, water, and land pollution. Therefore, a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has been developed using only food packaging aluminium covers. The proposed TENG helps in reducing environmental pollution as well as harvesting mechanical energy. In the proposed TENG, electroplated aluminum surface and PET surface of food packaging cover act as tribo-layers. The fabricated TENG generates voltage and instantaneous power density of ∼4 V and 40 nW/cm2. The TENG stability was tested over 4000 cycles and found highly stable. The proposed TENG output power can be increased by using other tribo layer materials such as PDMS, PVDF, and PVC films. Therefore, it can be utilized to power up portable electronic devices in the future.