COVID-19 clinical waste reuse: A triboelectric touch sensor for IoT-cloud supported smart hand sanitizer dispenser.

Earth's plastic pollution has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the world is on the doorstep of an enormous waste pandemic. The extensive use of mandatory personal protectives like masks, gloves, and PPE kits and the lack of proper waste management systems lead to a rise in the plastic pollution content of the earth. Such disposable and non-biodegradable personal protectives are thrown out to the environment after use. These distributed wastes pollute land, soil, and water bodies and effects their ecosystems. This research work establishes the concept of a waste-to-energy conversion approach to reuse COVID-19 scraps for green and sustainable development. Three-layered surgical masks and nitrile gloves were reused in this work after sterilization for energy harvesting and sensing applications by fabricating a 3D-printed contact-separation-based triboelectric nanogenerator. A piece of three-layered mask and nitrile gloves were placed inside the 3D structure as the top negative and bottom positive triboelectric materials with copper and aluminum as corresponding electrodes (MG-CS TENG). It can convert external mechanical motions into electrical energy. The maximum voltage, current, and power density obtained from the device are 50.7 V, 4.8 µA, and 6.39 µW/cm