The understanding of triboelectric charging of industrially important powders can help in avoiding or controlling the particle agglomeration and wall sheeting. We developed a new experimental approach to study both same-material particle-particle (P-P) and different-material particle-wall (P-W) charging of nascent polyethylene (PE) particles born by catalytic polymerization. We constructed a simple tribocharger consisting of a metal box divided inside into several compartments filled with the PE sample and attached to the vibration shaker. The particle charge distribution was characterized by a self-constructed electrostatic separator. This way, we investigated the charging dynamics of PE particles colliding with other PE particles as well as with metal walls of the box compartments. Both P-P and P-W charging were measured either separately, or in sequence, and in combination of simultaneous P-P and P-W. The different-material P-W charging produced unipolarly charged particles and was much faster than the same-material P-P charging leading to bipolar particle charge distribution. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.