Tribo-informatics empowered research on triboelectrification

The triboelectric effect, known since ancient Greece, is the accumulation of electric charges due to electron transfer when materials contact and separate. With technological advancements, the triboelectric effect has been applied in energy harvesting equipment, sensors, and smart devices, including triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). This effect shows potential for sustainable energy and next-generation intelligent systems. Triboelectric systems, as a type of tribological system, require state monitoring, behavior prediction, and system optimization. Tribo-informatics is an interdisciplinary field combining tribology and informatics. By clarifying information representation and flows within tribological systems, tribo-informatics addresses the connection between physical tribological systems and embedded information systems. With a focus on the triboelectric effect, this paper proposes a method for information representation in triboelectric systems from a tribo-informatics perspective, and suggests a research approach based on tribo-informatics to achieve research goals. The aim is to enable researchers to collect, process, and analyze tribological information more effectively to achieve specific research objectives.