Wear-resistant cellulosic triboelectric material for robust human-machine interface and high-performance self-powered sensing

Sensitive cellulosic fiber-based triboelectric sensors have recently achieved dramatically breakthroughs, however, the inevitable wear of fibers during long-term mechanical contact leads to fiber splitting behavior, resulting in unreliable sensing. Herein, a wear-resistant and high-performance cellulose/lignin/zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIF-8) (CLZ)-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is designed as the structurally robust interface in self-powered sensing. ZIF-8 was grown on methanol lignin in homogeneous system and ZIF-8/lignin composite was layer-by-layer assembled on cellulose networks driven by hydrogen bonds. Benefiting from the in situ formed lignin/ZIF-8 tribofilm with excellent wear resistance under loading sliding, the optimized CL₇Z₈ film displayed reduced wear rate of 64.96 % during 5000 cycles of wear testing. Moreover, the incorporated nanosized lignin/ZIF-8 significantly increased the dielectric constant and surface roughness, which synergistically enhanced the electrical output of CLZ-based TENG, achieving a maximum instantaneous power output of 346.41 mW/m², a 21-fold increase compared to original cellulose-based TENG. In view of its exceptional wear resistance and electrical output capability, the designed TENG was used as a wearable information sensing for physiological parameter detection. Our findings has proposed the delighted strategy to rational design high-performance and wear-resistance cellulosic triboelectric material, which also guided the clear research direction for next-generation of biopolymer-based triboelectric sensors. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd