Textiles that are capable of harvesting biomechanical energy via triboelectric effects are of interest for self-powered wearable electronics. Fabrication of conformable and durable textiles with high triboelectric outputs remains challenging. Here we propose a washable skin-touch-actuated textile-based triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting mechanical energy from both voluntary and involuntary body motions. Black phosphorus encapsulated with hydrophobic cellulose oleoyl ester nanoparticles serves as a synergetic electron-trapping coating, rendering a textile nanogenerator with long-term reliability and high triboelectricity regardless of various extreme deformations, severe washing, and extended environmental exposure. Considerably high output (~250–880 V, ~0.48–1.1 µA cm−2) can be attained upon touching by hand with a small force (~5 N) and low frequency (~4 Hz), which can power light-emitting diodes and a digital watch. This conformable all-textile-nanogenerator is incorporable onto cloths/skin to capture the low output of 60 V from subtle involuntary friction with skin, well suited for users’ motion or daily operations.

Advances in next-generation soft electronic devices rely on the development of highly deformable, healable, and printable energy generators to power these electronics. Development of deformable or wearable energy generators that can simultaneously attain extreme stretchability with superior healability remains a daunting challenge. We address this issue by developing a highly conductive, extremely stretchable, and healable composite based on thermoplastic elastomer with liquid metal and silver flakes as the stretchable conductor for triboelectric nanogenerators. The elastomer is used both as the matrix for the conductor and as the triboelectric layer. The nanogenerator showed a stretchability of 2500% and it recovered its energy-harvesting performance after extreme mechanical damage, due to the supramolecular hydrogen bonding of the thermoplastic elastomer. The composite of the thermoplastic elastomer, liquid metal particles, and silver flakes exhibited an initial conductivity of 6250 S cm −1 and recovered 96.0% of its conductivity after healing.

Stretchable conductors are vital and indispensable components in soft electronic systems. The development for stretchable conductors has been highly motivated with different approaches established to address the dilemma in the conductivity and stretchability trade-offs to some extent. Here, a new strategy to achieve superelastic conductors with high conductivity and stable electrical performance under stretching is reported. It is demonstrated that by electrically anchoring conductive fillers with eutectic gallium indium particles (EGaInPs), significant improvement in stretchability and durability can be achieved in stretchable conductors. Different from the strategy of modulating the chemical interactions between the conductive fillers and host polymers, the EGaInPs provide dynamic and robust electrical anchors between the conductive fillers. A superelastic conductor which can achieve a high stretchability with 1000% strain at initial conductivity of 8331 S cm and excellent cycling durability with about eight times resistance change (compared to the initial resistance at 0% strain before stretching) after reversibly stretching to 800% strain for 10 000 times is demonstrated. Applications of the superelastic conductor in an interactive soft touch device and a stretchable light-emitting system are also demonstrated, featuring its promising applications in soft robotics or soft and interactive human-machine interfaces.

Fiber that has been known for thousands of years for textile engineering, is a kind of thin 1D material with large length-diameter ratio and softness. Fiber can be further processed into 1D or 3D yarns and 2D or 3D fabrics and can be subjected to wellestablished textile manufacturing techniques, such as dyeing, twisting, sewing, knitting, weaving, braiding, etc. [1] As commercially available material, fabric has been widely used for clothing, bedding, or furniture. Such wide-adoption demonstrates fabrics/textiles to be important and adaptable as daily useable material due to their merits of protection, breathability, comfort, and durability. [2] In recent years, novel smart responsive functions are desirable to be implemented on fibers and fabrics for seamless integrations of actuators, sensors, power sources, etc., to realize the robotic fibers/fabric-based manipulators and human-robot interfaces. These emerging responsive fibers/ fabrics are desirable to offer programmable functions, actuations, perception and capable of building an intuitive and dynamic collaborative scenarios with human, promising in enabling applications such as remote operation, human motion assistance, human perception, health monitoring and biomedical detection and therapy. [3][4][5] It is an attractive concept that the future human-robot interfaces could be embodied in familiar forms for humans such as textiles or clothes. Compared with the polymeric and elastomeric soft robotics, [6][7][8][9] fibers and fabrics are advantageous in applications of soft robotics and wearables for human. The devices could be programmable to have accurate designs in configuration and high performance by traditional manufacturing processes of textile, applying twist to transform fibers into coils, yarns with hierarchical structures, which could be further fabricated into fabrics or textiles by sewing, weaving, knitting, etc., techniques (Figure 1), guaranteeing good wearability, skin affinity, washability, and durability, which are intriguing and necessary for friendly robotics interactions with human.Soft robotics include three main components of actuators, sensors, and control modules with power sources. [10,11] Of which, actuators, sensors and power sources all could be designed in the form of fibers or fabrics, rendering facile assembly, and integration by interlocking. [12] Common actuations can be Soft robotics inspired by the movement of living organisms, with excellent adaptability and accuracy for accomplishing tasks, are highly desirable for efficient operations and safe interactions with human. With the emerging wearable electronics, higher tactility and skin affinity are pursued for safe and user-friendly human-robot interactions. Fabrics interlocked by fibers perform traditional static functions such as warming, protection, and fashion. Recently, dynamic fibers and fabrics are favorable to deliver active stimulus responses such as sensing and actuating abilities for soft-robots and wearables. First, the responsive mechanisms of fiber/fabric actu...

Realizing energy harvesting from water flow using triboelectric generators (TEGs) based on our daily wearable fabric or textile has practical significance. Challenges remain on methods to fabricate conformable TEGs that can be easily incorporated into waterproof textile, or directly harvest energy from water using hydrophobic textile. Herein, a wearable all‐fabric‐based TEG for water energy harvesting, with additional self‐cleaning and antifouling properties is reported for the first time. Hydrophobic cellulose oleoyl ester nanoparticles (HCOENPs) are prepared from microcrystalline cellulose, as a low‐cost and nontoxic coating material to achieve superhydrophobic coating on fabrics, including cotton, silk, flax, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamide (nylon), and polyurethane. The resultant PET fabric‐based water‐TEG can generate an instantaneous output power density of 0.14 W m−2 at a load resistance of 100 MΩ. An all‐fabric‐based dual‐mode TEG is further realized to harvest both the electrostatic energy and mechanical energy of water, achieving the maximum instantaneous output power density of 0.30 W m−2. The HCOENPs‐coated fabric provides excellent breathability, washability, and environmentally friendly fabric‐based TEGs, making it a promising wearable self‐powered system.

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