Applied Research and Prospects of Triboelectric Nanogenerators Based on Waste Plastic Bags

The increasing production of plastic products and insufficient recycling have caused the problem of white pollution to plague the world, which has severely impacted the ecological environment, marine life, and drainage systems. Moreover, the widespread application of low-consumption electronic devices makes power consumption a non-negligible factor. Therefore, recycling discarded plastic bags as the friction material of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), collecting mechanical energy in daily life and converting it into continuous and stable electricity, can alleviate the two major problems of white pollution and energy consumption simultaneously. Furthermore, self-powered systems constructed using TENGs have enormous potential for driving low-consumption electronics, environmental monitoring, and wearable devices. Accordingly, this paper summarizes the general situation of white pollution, the theoretical origin, working principle, and theoretical model of TENGs, analyzes the feasibility of using waste plastic bags for TENGs, with the application progress of this self-powered sensing system, and looks forward to the future.