Scalable thermoelectric fibers for multifunctional textile-electronics

Abstract

Textile electronics are poised to revolutionize future wearable applications due to their wearing comfort and programmable nature. Many promising thermoelectric wearables have been extensively investigated for green energy harvesting and pervasive sensors connectivity. However, the practical applications of the TE textile are still hindered by the current laborious p/n junctions assembly of limited scale and mechanical compliance. Here we develop a gelation extrusion strategy that demonstrates the viability of digitalized manufacturing of continuous p/n TE fibers at high scalability and process efficiency. With such alternating p/n-type TE fibers, multifunctional textiles are successfully woven to realize energy harvesting on curved surface, multi-pixel touch panel for writing and communication. Moreover, modularized TE garments are worn on a robotic arm to fulfill diverse active and localized tasks. Such scalable TE fiber fabrication not only brings new inspiration for flexible devices, but also sets the stage for a wide implementation of multifunctional textile-electronics.

Electronic fibers and textiles: Recent progress and perspective

“…Based on excellent flexibility and electrical properties of electronic fibers, it is easy to imagine that electronic fibers can be directly woven into fabrics, to give full play to the advantages of electronic fibers, thus obtaining electronic textiles with various functions (Ding et al, 2020). For instance, a triboelectricinduced electroluminescent textile, composed of ZnS:Cu/PDMS composite fibers (warp yarns) and PTFE fibers (weft yarns), were woven with a simple plain woven structure (Figure 8A).…”

New Progress on Fiber-Based Thermoelectric Materials: Performance, Device Structures and Applications

“…Additionally, the flexible sensor achieved a highly selective response of about 2.7 s and provided a discriminant output voltage between human skin and the environment, as shown in Figure 7 h [ 115 ]. Additionally, a touch panel was fabricated by 10 TE fibers, which were easily woven into a patch of cross-stitch, as shown in Figure 7 i [ 13 ]. A strong signal was detected as opposed to the absence of signal for the non-contact ones when the finger touched TE fibers [ 13 ].…”

“…Additionally, a touch panel was fabricated by 10 TE fibers, which were easily woven into a patch of cross-stitch, as shown in Figure 7 i [ 13 ]. A strong signal was detected as opposed to the absence of signal for the non-contact ones when the finger touched TE fibers [ 13 ]. Based on this, Ding et al accomplished hand-writing alphabetical “NUS”, and the output is shown in Figure 7 h [ 13 ].…”

“…A strong signal was detected as opposed to the absence of signal for the non-contact ones when the finger touched TE fibers [ 13 ]. Based on this, Ding et al accomplished hand-writing alphabetical “NUS”, and the output is shown in Figure 7 h [ 13 ].…”

“…Generally, most conventional flexible thermoelectric (TE) devices are constructed based on bulk rigid TE elements, films with flexible, elastomer substrates, and flexible fabrics [ 5 , 8 , 9 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Although these structures of flexible TE devices have been studied extensively and have the advantages of flexible and light-weight properties, they only bend in one direction, with poor air permeability, two-dimensional planar structure, and low damage tolerance, which lead to a lack of essential wearable properties and restrict their commercial application in wearable TEGs [ 3 , 4 , 16 ].…”