  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.
