Self-Healing Triboelectric Sensors with Enhanced Durability for Gesture Recognition and Human–Machine Interaction

The emergence of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) has significantly developed the landscape of wearable electronics. However, the durability and self-healing capabilities of TENGs remain challenging. Herein, a self-healing triboelectric nanogenerator (SH-TENG) is proposed, utilizing a flexible and biocompatible glycerin and hydroxyethyl cellulose (GHEC), which is synthesized via a one-pot method. The GHEC exhibits two properties: exceptional stretchability (>400%) and rapid self-healing (<20 min), ensuring that the SH-TENG achieves significantly enhanced mechanical durability and self-healing capability. The SH-TENG sensor achieves near-complete recovery of its mechanical and electrical properties after GHEC damage. Moreover, a gesture signal sensing and recognition system is developed using SH-TENG sensors. The system achieves a high gesture recognition accuracy (>95%) and shows great potential for human-machine interaction (HMI). This work establishes SH-TENG as a promising solution for sustainable, self-powered wearable electronics, offering new possibilities in energy harvesting, gesture recognition, and HMI applications.