Recyclable waste derived green triboelectric nanogenerator for Self-Powered synthesis of Defect-Free graphene via Mechano-Electrochemical exfoliation

Abstract

With an upsurge in global waste generation per capita, and energy consumption, there is a simultaneous need for new strategies that can reuse plastic waste and harvest energy for practical applications. Hence, we propose a green triboelectric nanogenerator derived from waste (W-TENG), which was used to demonstrate a novel self-powered application of mechano-electrochemical exfoliation process for graphene synthesis. The W-TENG comprised of discarded plastic banner as tribo-negative material and chocolate wrapper as tribo-positive material, which were confirmed to be polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and aluminium, respectively by using different characterization techniques. The as-fabricated W-TENG exhibited an output VOC of 35 V and ISC of 0.4 µA. The instantaneous power output of the W-TENG was calculated as 0.0217 W/m2 at 45 MΩ external resistance load. The force-dependency behaviour of W-TENG demonstrated that the voltage and current output increased from 20 V to 58 V, and 0.2 to 0.4 µA, upon changing the applied force from 9 N to 30 N. Further, we have demonstrated a novel application, wherein 2D graphene nanosheets were synthesized via mechano-electrochemical exfoliation under highly conductive acidic solution, powered by the W-TENG. Various physico-chemical characterization techniques confirmed it to be defect free few-layered graphene. This work demonstrates a promising “waste to wealth” strategy of using discarded plastic waste to develop a robust mechanical energy harvester to power various applications.