Toward a New Era of Sustainable Energy: Advanced Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Harvesting High Entropy Energy

Widely distributed across the environment, irregular micro-nano mechanical high entropy energy (HEE) is a new promising recoverable energy, in which the development of matched harvesting technology is imperative to fit in with the requirements of booming sustainable energy in the new era. The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a very efficient technology for harvesting micro-nano HEE, especially when converting irregular, low-frequency, weak mechanical energy into electricity. Here, the latest advancements are comprehensively reviewed in using TENGs for sustainable energy, sensing, and other applications. The fundamental theory and overwhelming superiority of TENG is systematically analyzed as a sustainable energy with four representative domains: micro-nano distributed power sources, self-powered sensing systems, direct high-voltage power sources, and large-scale blue energy. The review is concluded with a discussion of the challenges of leveraging TENGs for sustainable energy engineering. The striving directions of TENG technologies are proposed with a concentration on basic research and commercialization for the new ear of 5G and Internet of Things.