Moisture‐Adaptive Triboelectric Materials and Platforms: Design Strategies, Performance Enhancement, and Applications in Energy Harvesting and Wearable Electronics

ABSTRACT

Humidity is a major barrier to reliable triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) operation, causing humidity‐induced performance degradation through charge leakage and dielectric screening at wet interfaces. This review summarizes recent advances in moisture‐adaptive triboelectric materials and device platforms aimed at enhancing the performance and durability of TENGs. Three primary strategies are highlighted. First, multilayer fibrous assemblies that feature capillarity‐guided and Murray's law‐conforming architectures enable directional moisture transport and effective physical isolation of active triboelectric interfaces, while maintaining breathability, flexibility, wearer comfort, and mechanical compliance. Second, surface energy engineering approaches, including Janus and gradient‐wettability designs combined with low surface energy materials, mitigate water adsorption, stabilize surface charge retention, and improve cycling durability under exposure to sweat, fog, and rain. Third, electrical performance is further enhanced through hierarchical micro–nano surface texturing, interfacial coupling strategies, and nanofiller incorporation, which collectively optimize contact effectiveness and charge density, enabling robust output even in highly humid or submerged environments. These strategies are further mapped to practical applications, including wearable and biomedical sensing in moisture‐rich environments, smart protective textiles that integrate protection with real‐time sensing, and underwater energy harvesting scenarios where long‐term immersion is unavoidable.