Acoustic-electric conversion and triboelectric properties of nature-driven CF-CNT based triboelectric nanogenerator for mechanical and sound energy harvesting

Currently, the world is facing severe environmental challenges such as water pollution, rising temperatures beyond the tolerable range, and air pollution. Moreover, improper waste disposal is becoming a serious concern that enhances global warming. Among the waste materials, plastic waste and cigarette butts (CBs) or cigarette filters (CFs) are causing major environmental problems. Therefore, treating these waste materials has become a critical issue. In this scenario, converting waste to energy is considered to be the most effective disposal process for discarded materials. Furthermore, integrating waste matters with nanomaterials can lead to novel technological aspects. Herein, we utilized discarded CFs and plastic waste as positive and negative tribo materials, respectively, to fabricate a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) device. The energy harvesting performance of the developed TENG device was investigated by adding a small amount (0.1 wt %) of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The CNTs incorporated TENG device exhibited exceptional energy harvesting performance by generating 60 V output voltage, 1805 nA current, and 110.6 mW/m2 power density under 10 N applied force. The energy harvested by the fabricated device can efficiently light 50 green LEDs and power the LCD of a portable timer clock. The developed CF-CNT TENG device exhibited robust electrical performances under various compressive forces and showed long-term stability. Moreover, the fabricated device can be used as a sound-driven TENG device that can work effectively in broad bandwidths ranging from 100 Hz to 400 Hz. Thus reducing sound pollution and simultaneously generating green and clean energy. Therefore, we anticipate that the present study will pave the way for green energy generation and environmental remediation.