Design of a Self-powered Smart Mask for COVID-19

TL;DR

This paper presents a self-powered smart face mask utilizing triboelectric nanogenerators for enhanced filtration and virus inactivation, harvesting energy from daily activities to provide an effective, reusable COVID-19 protective device.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multilayer smart mask design combining triboelectric filtration with self-powered energy harvesting, improving virus inactivation and filtration efficiency.

Findings

Optimized triboelectric fabric pairs with high charge densities.

Effective virus-laden aerosol inactivation demonstrated.

Self-powered operation from facial movements achieved.

Abstract

Usage of a face mask has become mandatory in many countries after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, and its usefulness in combating the pandemic is a proven fact. There have been many advancements in the design of a face mask and the present treatise describes a face mask in which a simple textile triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) serves the purpose of filtration of SARS-CoV-2. The proposed mask is designed with multilayer protection sheets, in which the first two layers act as triboelectric (TE) filter and the outer one is a smart filter. The conjugated effect of contact electrification, and electrostatic induction of the proposed smart mask are effective in inactivating the span of virus-ladden aerosols in a bidirectional way. Five pairs of triboseries fabrics i.e. nylon - polyester, cotton - polyester, poly(methyl methacrylate) - PVDF, lylon - PVDF and polypropylene - polyester have been optimized in this study in terms of their effective tribo-electric charge densities as 83.13, 211.48, 38.62, 69 and 74.25 nC/m2, respectively. This smart mask can be used by a wide range of people because of its simple mechanism, self-driven (harvesting mechanical energy from daily activities, e.g. breathing, talking, or other facial movements functionalities, and effective filtration efficiency and thus, it is expected to be potentially beneficial to slow down the devastating impact of COVID-19.