Advances in Electrospun Fiber‐Based Flexible Nanogenerators for Wearable Applications

Abstract

In today's digital age, the need and interest in personal and portable electronics shows a dramatic growth trend in daily life parallel to the developments in sensors technologies and the internet. Wearable electronics that can be attached to clothing, accessories, and the human body are one of the most promising subfields. The energy requirement for the devices considering the reduction in device sizes and the necessity of being flexible and light, the existing batteries are insufficient and nanogenerators have been recognized a suitable energy source in the last decade. The mechanical energy created by the daily activities of the human body is an accessible and natural energy source for nanogenerators. Fiber‐structured functional materials contribute to the increase in energy efficiency due to their effective surface to volume ratio while providing the necessary compatibility and comfort for the movements in daily life with its flexibility and lightness. Among the potential solutions, electrospinning stands out as a promising technique that can meet these requirements, allowing for simple, versatile, and continuous fabrication. Herein, wearable electronics and their future potential, electrospinning, and its place in energy applications are overviewed. Moreover, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and hybrid nanogenerators fabricated or associated with electrospun fibrous materials are presented.

A New Class of Electronic Devices Based on Flexible Porous Substrates

“…In addition, environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity can affect the crystallization and phase separation process of the polymer, thus affecting the fiber morphology. [ 89 ] Functional nanofibers can be easily obtained by doping active nanomaterials in the precursor solution or performing surface modification after electrospinning. [ 90 ] Representative functional nanomaterials include metals (e.g., Au, Ag), metal oxides (e.g., TiO 2 , WO 3 ), carbon materials (e.g., graphene, CNTs), and their composites.…”

“…Since the invention of electrospinning in 1943, over 100 different types of organic polymers have been utilized to produce continuous nanofibers. [ 89 ] The polymer precursors can be synthetic polymers such as PU, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and polyacrylonitrile (PAN), or natural polymers such as collagen, silk, and chitosan. [ 9 ] During electrospinning, a high‐voltage electric field is applied to the polymer precursor solutions to eject electrically charged jets from the spinneret, then the polymer jets are stretched and accelerated toward the collector plate.…”

Sustainable Macromolecular Materials in Flexible Electronics

“…It is predicted that the need for sensors will increase rapidly in the coming years. [ 25 ] Transistors and memristors are indispensable basic units in integrated circuit designs. The increase in the annual use of transistors has been mentioned in the literature in many studies.…”

Thermoactive Smart Electrospun Nanofibers

“…[32][33][34][35] Electrospun materials are currently under investigation for applications that span from air and water filtration, [36,37] to the biomedical field, [38][39][40] catalytic systems, [41,42] sensors, [43,44] structural composites, [45,46] and energy storage and harvesting. [47][48][49] Thus electrospun platforms are expected to significantly impact socioeconomic aspects in the next few years.…”