Self-Healing Triboelectric Sensors with Enhanced Durability for Gesture Recognition and Human-Machine Interaction

The emergence of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) has significantly developed the landscape of wearable electronics. However, the durability and self-healing capabilities of TENGs remain challenging. Herein, a self-healing triboelectric nanogenerator (SH-TENG) is proposed, utilizing a flexible and biocompatible glycerin and hydroxyethyl cellulose (GHEC), which is synthesized via a one-pot method. The GHEC exhibits two properties: exceptional stretchability (>400%) and rapid self-healing (<20 min), ensuring that the SH-TENG achieves significantly enhanced mechanical durability and self-healing capability. The SH-TENG sensor achieves near-complete recovery of its mechanical and electrical properties after GHEC damage. Moreover, a gesture signal sensing and recognition system is developed using SH-TENG sensors. The system achieves a high gesture recognition accuracy (>95%) and shows great potential for human-machine interaction (HMI). This work establishes SH-TENG as a promising solution for sustainable, self-powered wearable electronics, offering new possibilities in energy harvesting, gesture recognition, and HMI applications.