A contextual framework development toward triboelectric nanogenerator commercialization

The world is experiencing the third wave of electronic commerce, in which battery-free electronics dominate the market share. Additionally, the wide distribution of the sensors and high maintenance costs make batteries an insufficient solution, especially for remote or inaccessible areas. Powering the internet of things (IoT) would be impossible without making the sensors self-powered by harvesting energy from the working environment to ensure long-term operation. Besides, self-powering is a significant advancement for wireless sensing and the emerging IoT trend, where nanogenerators emerge as a compelling platform technology. However, nanogenerator-enabled self-powered systems still introduce a slew of new challenges, including the grand challenge of relatively low power generation in most energy-harvesting modalities. Therefore, it is crucial to alleviate various technical, operational, and social barriers of nanogenerator-based devices and present their potential mitigation solutions. Here, ten significant barriers are scrutinized in terms of the market adoption of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)-based technologies, and interrelationships among them are examined using a total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis. The findings of this study can help key players in this field understand the most significant impediments to TENG market adoption, which can revolutionize wireless and distributed electronics without batteries.