Self‐Healing and Stretchable 3D‐Printed Organic Thermoelectrics

Abstract

With the advent of flexible and wearable electronics and sensors, there is an urgent need to develop energy-harvesting solutions that are compatible with such wearables. However, many of the proposed energy-harvesting solutions lack the necessary mechanical properties, which make them susceptible to damage by repetitive and continuous mechanical stresses, leading to serious degradation in device performance. Developing new energy materials that possess high deformability and self-healability is essential to realize self-powered devices. Herein, a thermoelectric ternary composite is demonstrated that possesses both selfhealing and stretchable properties produced via 3D-printing method. The ternary composite films provide stable thermoelectric performance during viscoelastic deformation, up to 35% tensile strain. Importantly, after being completely severed by cutting, the composite films autonomously recover their thermoelectric properties with a rapid response time of around one second. Using this self-healable and solution-processable composite, 3D-printed thermoelectric generators are fabricated, which retain above 85% of their initial power output, even after repetitive cutting and self-healing. This approach represents a significant step in achieving damage-free and truly wearable 3D-printed organic thermoelectrics.

Halide Perovskites: Thermal Transport and Prospects for Thermoelectricity

“…[ 22 ] In addition, their room temperature Seebeck coefficient is generally found to be superior to other solution‐processed materials such as organics. [ 23–26 ] Their ultralow thermal conductivity coupled with decent carrier mobility and Seebeck coefficient led to the prediction of halide perovskites as a suitable candidate for future thermoelectrics. [ 24,27 ] While traditional inorganic thermoelectric materials such as Bi 2 Te 3 have good thermoelectric performance, their high fabrication and material cost have motivated the quest for facile solution‐processed thermoelectric materials.…”

Blood Pressure Sensors: Materials, Fabrication Methods, Performance Evaluations and Future Perspectives

“…Other strategies include the reduction of active materials concentration in nanocomposite matrix through alignment [260], the utilization of novel additives manufacturing techniques such as LIG [271], or the imprinting technique to control the patterns and orientation of functional materials by template restriction [290]. The design and fabrication of wearable sensors with autonomous capabilities include wireless transmission [615,616] self-powered [220,617], self-healed [485] and self-degraded [519] will certainly enable continuous diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. However, these features and similar ones are no longer considered desirable, but they are becoming as crucial as other performance measures since they will allow automatic reparation of device malfunctions and disposal.…”

“…Finally, there is an essential need for a multidisciplinary approach encompasses of different knowledge areas, mainly, data, material, medical, and engineering sciences to ensure seamless integration between various sensor components and architecture, and address other challenges associated with sensor overall performance, as well as, evaluate the impact of each on device reliability and efficiency. fabrication of wearable sensors with autonomous capabilities include wireless transmission [615,616] self-powered [220,617], self-healed [485] and self-degraded [519] will certainly enable continuous diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. However, these features and similar ones are no longer considered desirable, but they are becoming as crucial as other performance measures since they will allow automatic reparation of device malfunctions and disposal.…”

Flexible Electronics: Status, Challenges and Opportunities

“…This has served as a base to create interconnections, resistive sensors (Kamyshny and Magdassi, 2019;Manzanares-Palenzuela et al, 2019). The same nanomaterials have been used with pastes, hydrogels, and elastomers to fabricate tactile sensors used in e-skin (Guo et al, 2017;Lei et al, 2017), as anode and cathode in 3D printed batteries (Park et al, 2017), and as a self-healing active in a stretchable thermoelectric generator (Kee et al, 2019). 3D printing is a relatively new field that will benefit from improved ink formulations that help build up and maintain its own weight through physical or chemical means, the exploration of new materials that will act as matrices for functional nanoparticles, as well as the engineering of new devices and means to deposit these inks to conformal surfaces and in complex shapes that may change with time.…”