Self-powered triboelectric functional devices and microsystems in health-care applications: An energy perspective

Health care is one of the most promising applications for triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). In this review, we summarize recent advances in the three most popular health care-related applications of TENGs: microbial disinfection, interventional therapy and implantable microsystems. Furthermore, we discuss the evolution of important common technologies of TENGs in these three applications, which covers energy harvesting, energy storage and energy-efficient functional design. For these three promising applications, this paper explores their future technical roadmap and reveals a trend towards smaller, stronger, more effective and more controllable triboelectric devices and systems.