Sustainable Solutions for Oral Health Monitoring: Biowaste-Derived Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Oral healthcare monitoring is a vital aspect of identifyingandaddressing oral dental problems including tooth decay, gum pain, andoral cancer. Day by day, healthcare facilities and regular checkupsare becoming more costly and time-consuming. In this context, consumersare moving toward advanced technology, such as bite sensors, to obtainregular data about their occlusal chewing patterns and strength. Thetriboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) can potentially eliminate the needfor a battery by simply converting abundant vibrations from natureor human motion into electrical energy. In this work, biomaterialsare obtained from biowastes such as cellulose from wood waste, chitosanfrom crab shells, and gelatin from fish scales. All wastes are biodegradable,and our work aims at sustainability and waste hierarchy. The singleelectrode mode-based TENG was designed and fabricated using biodegradablepoly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-biomaterial composites, rice paperas a substrate, and edible silver leaf as an electrode. The highestelectrical output was obtained for PVA/chitosan 10 wt % composite-basedTENG (PC10) of about 20 V, 200 nA, and 12 nC. The biomechanical energyharvesting was measured, and powering of LED was demonstrated usinga PC10 TENG device. A biocompatible bite sensor based on the TENGwas used to measure the biting force of a dummy teeth model to demonstrateits potential use in dental health applications. It indicates thepromising future value of disposable oral medication devices withoutany invasive surgery or injection.

Automated summary

Oral healthcare monitoring is important for identifying and addressing oral dental problems. Consumers are increasingly using advanced technology, such as bite sensors, to track their chewing patterns. The use of biodegradable biomaterials in the design of a nanogenerator shows promise for sustainable and non-invasive oral healthcare applications.