A fully sustainable, self-poled, bio-waste based piezoelectric nanogenerator: electricity generation from pomelo fruit membrane

A self-powered system is very much essential aspect in the recent trend to improve the working efficiency of the portable and wearable devices. Here, we have reported a fully sustainable, self-poled, bio-compatible, and bio-waste based piezoelectric energy harvester which has been made of Pomelo Fruit Membrane (PFM). PFM based piezoelectric generator (PFMBPEG) could generate ~ 6.4 V output voltage and ~ 7.44 μA output current directly, only by finger tapping on the device and registers a power density of ~ 12 μW cm(−2) whereas, the same piezoelectric generator can generate ~ 15 V output voltage, 130 μA output current, and power density of ~ 487.5 μW cm(−2) by using a full wave rectifier. The sensitivity and energy harvesting competence of the generator have also been assessed by attaching this nanogenerator into various parts of human body (as energy sources) such as wrist, elbow, finger, throat, jaws, leg and putting the device into ultrasonic bath and in every case, it could successfully generate voltage. Therefore, this bio-waste based energy harvester can be used as a power source for the different potable and wearable electronic goods where a small amount of energy is required, specifically in the biomedical applications (i.e., health monitoring, power source for the implantable devices and so on). Finally, mechanical stability the developed piezoelectric generator has been evaluated by cyclic bending test and it has been observed that there is no significant deformation of the PFM film even after 100 cycles.