Wearable Electricity Generators Fabricated Utilizing Transparent Electronic Textiles Based on Polyester/Ag Nanowires/Graphene Core–Shell Nanocomposites

Abstract

The technological realization of wearable triboelectric generators is attractive because of their promising applications in wearable self-powered intelligent systems. However, the low electrical conductivity, the low electrical stability, and the low compatibility of current electronic textiles (e-textiles) and clothing restrict the comfortable and aesthetic integration of wearable generators into human clothing. Here, we present high-performance, transparent, smart e-textiles that employ commercial textiles coated with silver nanowire/graphene sheets fabricated by using a scalable, environmentally friendly, full-solution process. The smart e-textiles show superb and stable conduction of below 20 Ω/square as well as excellent flexibility, stretchability, foldability, and washability. In addition, wearable electricity-generating textiles, in which the e-textiles act as electrodes as well as wearable substrates, are presented. Because of the high compatibility of smart e-textiles and clothing, the electricity-generating textiles can be easily integrated into a glove to harvest the mechanical energy induced by the motion of the fingers. The effective output power generated by a single generator due to that motion reached as high as 7 nW/cm(2). The successful demonstration of the electricity-generating glove suggests a promising future for polyester/Ag nanowire/graphene core-shell nanocomposite-based smart e-textiles for real wearable electronic systems and self-powered clothing.

Recent Progress on the Fabrication of Silver Nanowire-Based Transparent Electrodes

“…The coating of an extra layer, such as ZnO [34], aluminum-doped ZnO (AZO) [35] or TiO 2 [36], by either ALD or sol-gel methods has been found to significantly increase the adhesion. Graphene has also been observed to increase the adhesion of Ag nanowires to a polyester yarn surface [37]. This is due to the existence of a large van der Waals force between graphene and the polyester (Fig.…”

Flexible and Cellulose-based Organic Electronics

“…Furthermore, due to the ease of processing and inherent flexibility of conductive polymers, organic-based TEGs can be used in applications such as printed electronics, etextiles and wearable electronics. [118][119] …”

Unique visible-light-assisted field emission of tetrapod-shaped ZnO/reduced graphene-oxide core/coating nanocomposites

“…However, we should note that the graphene sheets in the reported nanocomposites mostly act as supports and buffers. We also point out that graphene sheets, because of their excellent flexibility, can play an important role in providing a unique monatomic shell on which to coat semiconductor nanomaterials272829. The turn-on field of field-emission devices at 1 μA/cm 2 utilizing graphene sheets grown on the surfaces of ZnO nanowires by using a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition has been reduced from 2.5 to 1.3 V/μm due to the small radii and the additional high density of the emission sites in the graphene sheets30.…”