A Machine‐Fabricated 3D Honeycomb‐Structured Flame‐Retardant Triboelectric Fabric for Fire Escape and Rescue

Abstract

Fire disaster is one of the most common hazards that threaten public safety and social development: how to improve the fire escape and rescue capacity remains a huge challenge. Here, a 3D honeycomb‐structured woven fabric triboelectric nanogenerator (F‐TENG) based on a flame‐retardant wrapping yarn is developed. The wrapping yarn is fabricated through a continuous hollow spindle fancy twister technology, which is compatible with traditional textile production processes. The resulting 3D F‐TENG can be used in smart carpets as a self‐powered escape and rescue system that can precisely locate the survivor position and point out the escape route to timely assist victim search and rescuing. As interior decoration, the unique design of the honeycomb weaving structure endows the F‐TENG fabric with an excellent noise‐reduction ability. In addition, combining with its good machine washability, air permeability, flame‐retardency, durability, and repeatability features, the 3D F‐TENG may have great potential applications in fire rescue and wearable sensors as well as smart home decoration.

Fully Fabric-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerators as Self-Powered Human–Machine Interactive Keyboards

“…Fortunately, since the invention of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) in 2012 [ 5 – 7 ], wearable electronics provide new dawn and reengineering for sensing and energy harvesting [ 8 – 10 ]. On account of the advantages of TENGs, such as easy structural design [ 11 , 12 ], low cost [ 13 ], high conversion efficiency [ 14 , 15 ], and broad range of applications [ 16 ], the coupling effect of contact electrification (CE) and electrostatic induction can be achieved between any materials [ 6 , 17 ]. Therefore, the integration of general-purpose TENG technology with smart fabrics brings new vitality and more possibilities to the next generation of wearable electronics [ 18 , 19 ], personal healthcare [ 20 , 21 ], and human–computer interfaces [ 22 – 24 ].…”

“…Recently, self-powered smart textiles combined with TENGs for accommodating the era of IoTs have been reported [ 37 – 40 ]. For example, a 3D honeycomb structure woven fabric triboelectric nanogenerator based on flame-retardant wrapping yarn was developed for fire escape and rescue [ 11 ]. A DC fabric TENG, which takes advantage of electrostatic breakdown phenomenon of clothes, can light up 416 serially connected light-emitting diodes [ 7 , 9 ].…”

Triboelectric nanogenerator: from alternating current to direct current

“…To harvest this part of mechanical energy, single-electrode mode has been invented ( Figure 3 C). This mode has significant merits for energy harvesting in some special cases such as human working, finger typing, motion sensor, raindrop, and more ( Lin et al., 2014 ; Ma et al., 2020 ; Niu et al., 2014 ; Pu et al., 2017a ; Wu et al., 2018 ; Yang et al., 2013 ). The freestanding triboelectric-layer mode is also invented for harvesting mechanical energy from the free object ( Figure 3 D).…”

Elastic Multifunctional Liquid–Metal Fibers for Harvesting Mechanical and Electromagnetic Energy and as Self‐Powered Sensors

“…[ 18–20 ] Wearable TENGs based on textiles extract mechanical energy from the human body, actively sense body motion, and function in a wide range of conditions. [ 7,10–15,21–37 ] One of the authors previously reported the first single‐thread‐based TENG using a twisted multi‐thread stainless steel wire as the conducting electrode and silicone rubber as the triboelectric material. [ 11 ] However, the resulting TENG was neither stretchable nor elastic; therefore, a 1D serpentine sewing structure was proposed to overcome the mechanical limitations.…”

“…[ 7,12,21–27 ] In most works, the individual triboelectric fibers remained inherently inextensible; as a result, the achieved stretchabilities of the reported TENG fabrics remain considerably limited (20–30% strain) as defined by the geometry of the fibers rather than the inherent mechanical properties. [ 7,10–15,21–34 ] Stretchable devices are more robust, comfortable, and versatile than inextensible devices, yet there is a lack of such intrinsically stretchable and elastic TENG fibers. [ 35–38 ]…”