Wearable Textile Battery Rechargeable by Solar Energy

Abstract

Wearable electronics represent a significant paradigm shift in consumer electronics since they eliminate the necessity for separate carriage of devices. In particular, integration of flexible electronic devices with clothes, glasses, watches, and skin will bring new opportunities beyond what can be imagined by current inflexible counterparts. Although considerable progresses have been seen for wearable electronics, lithium rechargeable batteries, the power sources of the devices, do not keep pace with such progresses due to tenuous mechanical stabilities, causing them to remain as the limiting elements in the entire technology. Herein, we revisit the key components of the battery (current collector, binder, and separator) and replace them with the materials that support robust mechanical endurance of the battery. The final full-cells in the forms of clothes and watchstraps exhibited comparable electrochemical performance to those of conventional metal foil-based cells even under severe folding-unfolding motions simulating actual wearing conditions. Furthermore, the wearable textile battery was integrated with flexible and lightweight solar cells on the battery pouch to enable convenient solar-charging capabilities.

Woven Structured Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Wearable Devices

“…3 Wearable electronics is likely to open up a new life pattern for consumers, since they can be integrated with clothes, 4,5 eye glasses, 6 wristwatches 7 and even skin sensors, 8,9 all of which can be integrated with a cell phone to form a local network using the cell phone as the hub, through which the local network can be linked with Internet. To date, quite a few wearable electronics have entered the market, for example Google Glasses, Apple Smart Watch, Adidas MiCoach, "Hi-call" Bluetooth enabled phone glove, and Cute-circuit Galaxy LED Dress.…”

Fiber‐Type Solar Cells, Nanogenerators, Batteries, and Supercapacitors for Wearable Applications

“…PU can also be used as the binder material. The advantage of using this design is that the assembled full cell can show excellent endurance for severe mechanical tests while delivering comparable electrochemical properties 119. The presence of urethane groups and polyethylene glycol/polytetramethylene ether glycol (PEG/PTMEG) offer good wettability for both the electrodes.…”

“…These kinds of devices can be considered as photovoltaic charging systems where the required charging voltage and current for the storage part is partially/fully provided by the solar cell part 233. Wearable textile batteries can be powered by polymer solar cells 119. The main components of the LIB, like current collector, separator, and binder, can be replaced with materials that can endure mechanical stress and strain.…”

“…g) A schematic illustration of the cell configuration of the wearable textile battery. Reproduced with permission 119. Copyright 2013, ACS Publications.…”

Flexible and biocompatible high-performance solid-state micro-battery for implantable orthodontic system

“…On the contrary, recent research efforts establish an impressive alternatives to commercially available cylindrical, coin, prismatic, and pouch cells with flexible and stretchable batteries. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Nevertheless, such advances do not address the major necessities for implantable devices, especially in orthodontic dental implantations, which generally require: smaller footprint, lightness, high bio-compatibility, and finally integration strategy with other circuit components. Here, we show, a high yield, transfer-less method to achieve a bio-compatible, flexible, high-performance solid-state, micro-battery for wearable and implantable device electronics, specifically with an example potentially disruptive for orthodontics applications.…”