posted on 2022-01-20, 16:37authored byBhaskar Dudem, R. D. Ishara G. Dharmasena, Raheel Riaz, Venkateswaran Vivekananthan, K. G. U. Wijayantha, Paolo Lugli, Luisa Petti, S. Ravi P. Silva
Electronic waste produced by plastic,
toxic, and semiconducting
components of existing electronic devices is dramatically increasing
environmental pollution. To overcome these issues, the use of eco-friendly
materials for designing such devices is attaining much attention.
This current work presents a recycled material-based triboelectric
nanogenerator (TENG) made of plastic waste and carbon-coated paper
wipes (C@PWs), in which the PWs are also collected from a waste bin.
The resultant C@PW-based TENG is then used for powering low-power
electronic devices and, later, to generate a Morse code from a wearable
for autonomous communication. In this application, the end users decode
the Morse code from a customized LabVIEW program and read the transmitted
signal. With further redesigning, a 9-segment keyboard is developed
using nine-TENGs, connected to an Arduino controller to display the
9-segment actuation on a computer screen. Based on the above analysis,
our C@PW-TENG device is expected to have an impact on future self-powered
sensors and internet of things systems.