How to benchmark triboelectric nanogenerator: a review

Abstract Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) can convert random mechanical vibrations around the environment into electricity and have huge potential in artificial intelligence, blue energy, carbon neutrality, human–machine interface, e-skin, etc. Although many efforts have been made on the working mechanism and performance enhancement in the past decade, characterizing and evaluating the performance of TENGs remains challenging due to the lack of benchmarking guidelines. Previous works based on different measurement methods and metrics as well as the lack of details result in difficulties in performance comparison. In this review, we discuss fundamental works on electrical measurement and performance evaluation of TENGs. Issues in measurement are elucidated and corresponding solutions are presented. Then, the origin and development of the figure-of-merits (FOMs) of TENGs are reviewed. The standardization not only broadens our understanding but also facilitates the commercialization and industrialization of TENGs. We believe that the correct measurement and fair evaluation can promote the performance assessment of TENGs and the continuous development of this field.