Triboelectric Nanogenerators Driven Self-Powered Electrochemical Processes for Energy and Environmental Science

Ever since the discovery of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) by Wang's group in January 2012, various breakthroughs have been achieved in the fundamental mechanisms of TENG as well as the demonstrated self-powered systems. TENG has shown many advantages in micro-scale energy harvesting for applications in sensors and portable devices. As a self-sufficient power source, TENG can be used in conjunction with electrochemical processes as self-powered electrochemistry without the use of external power source. This review mainly focuses on the updated progress in TENGs for both high performance energy conversion and self-powered electrochemical systems in application such as water splitting, sea water desalination, air pollution cleaning, degradation of organic pollutant, collecting of heavy metal ions and many more. The idea of performing electrochemistry without using an external power could be useful for large-scale application in environmental science.