A Review of Solar Energy Harvesting Electronic Textiles

Abstract

An increased use in wearable, mobile, and electronic textile sensing devices has led to a desire to keep these devices continuously powered without the need for frequent recharging or bulky energy storage. To achieve this, many have proposed integrating energy harvesting capabilities into clothing: solar energy harvesting has been one of the most investigated avenues for this due to the abundance of solar energy and maturity of photovoltaic technologies. This review provides a comprehensive, contemporary, and accessible overview of electronic textiles that are capable of harvesting solar energy. The review focusses on the suitability of the textile-based energy harvesting devices for wearable applications. While multiple methods have been employed to integrate solar energy harvesting with textiles, there are only a few examples that have led to devices with textile properties.

Advanced Materials for innovative solar cell technologies - part 1 (NanoTrust-Dossier No 056en - November 2021)

“…34 Energy selfsufficient camping equipment with integrated or optional PV modules could also be successfully launched on the market. In future, EPVs could play a greater role in this field, for example in the form of e-textiles [35][36] that are sewn into tents, clothing, backpacks, etc. However, durability and reliability of the EPVs will be key for successful application.…”

Energy Harvesting Materials and Structures for Smart Textile Applications: Recent Progress and Path Forward

“…Table 1 provides a list of strengths and weaknesses of photovoltaic, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and thermoelectric energy harvesting within the context of smart/e-textiles application. If large progress has been made over the last few years and is still occurring at a rapid pace as evidenced by the large number of scientific articles recently published, the technologies behind wearable energy harvesting have not reached maturity yet and many challenges remain [151][152][153][154][155]. In general, technologies with high energy conversion efficiencies lack the flexibility and low weight required for smart/e-textile applications.…”

Fabric based printed-distributed battery for wearable e-textiles: a review

“…There has been significant research interest in smart textiles and on the mechanism of powering electronic textiles which necessitate research into an energy source. Energy harvesting systems, including inductive coupling [39], thermoelectric [40], photovoltaic cells [41] and also piezo-or triboelectric materials [42], are among techniques to power wearable electronic textiles.…”

“…There has been significant research interest in smart textiles and on the mechanism of powering electronic textiles which necessitates research into an energy source. Energy harvesting systems, including inductive coupling [ 39 ], thermoelectric [ 40 ], photovoltaic cells [ 41 ] and also piezo- or triboelectric materials [ 42 ], are among techniques to power wearable electronic textiles. However, all of these power harvesting methods usually need conventional battery or capacitor for storing the produced energy, and also only a small amount of energy is harvested from the surrounding environment [ 43 ].…”