Environmental sensing is fundamental for understanding and managing ecosystems, climate patterns, and resource sustainability. Continuous monitoring of parameters like wind, humidity, rainfall, and water flow across diverse and often remote locations is essential. Conventional sensor networks face significant limitations due to their reliance on batteries or wired power sources. Frequent maintenance for battery replacement or recharging becomes impractical and costly in inaccessible or harsh environments, hindering long-term, distributed data collection. This creates a critical demand for self-sustaining sensing technologies capable of harvesting ambient energy directly from their surroundings. Triboelectric nanogenerators represent a promising solution by converting ubiquitous mechanical energy from environmental sources into usable electrical power. Their inherent material flexibility and adaptability are crucial for seamless integration into natural settings. This review specifically focuses on the pivotal role of advanced flexible nanostructured polymer materials in enhancing TENG performance for reliable self-powered environmental sensing applications, enabling persistent operation without external energy inputs. These materials provide the foundation for overcoming key challenges in sensitivity, environmental resilience, and practical deployment, thus paving the way for the future widespread application of such self-powered sensors across diverse industrial sectors.
Keywords: Environmental sensing; Polymer materials; Self‐powered; Triboelectric nanogenerators.
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