Stretchable fabric generates electric power from woven thermoelectric fibers

Abstract

Assembling thermoelectric modules into fabric to harvest energy from body heat could one day power multitudinous wearable electronics. However, the invalid 2D architecture of fabric limits the application in thermoelectrics. Here, we make the valid thermoelectric fabric woven out of thermoelectric fibers producing an unobtrusive working thermoelectric module. Alternately doped carbon nanotube fibers wrapped with acrylic fibers are woven into π-type thermoelectric modules. Utilizing elasticity originating from interlocked thermoelectric modules, stretchable 3D thermoelectric generators without substrate can be made to enable sufficient alignment with the heat flow direction. The textile generator shows a peak power density of 70 mWm −2 for a temperature difference of 44 K and excellent stretchability (~80% strain) with no output degradation. The compatibility between body movement and sustained power supply is further displayed. The generators described here are true textiles, proving active thermoelectrics can be woven into various fabric architectures for sensing, energy harvesting, or thermal management.

Flourishing energy harvesters for future body sensor network: from single to multiple energy sources

“…The evolution trend of the EHs in terms of growing systematic complexity (A) Emerging energy harvesters with versatile effects targeting different energy sources. Reprinted from ref (Chen et al, 2019c;Hu et al, 2019;Jiang et al, 2020c;Kim et al, 2020;Maharjan et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020a) (Wang et al, 2020f) with permission, Copyrightª2020 Elsevier Ltd. (C) Self-powered strain sensing enabled by a flexible perovskite solar cell (PSC) and lithium-ion capacitor (LIC). Reprinted from ref with permission, Copyrightª2019 Elsevier Ltd. (D) A self-powered wireless sensor node via a TENG-based direct sensory transmission mechanism.…”

Scalable thermoelectric fibers for multifunctional textile-electronics

“…[23][24][25] Despite intensive research efforts and advances in textile based TE devices utilizing bismuth telluride 26 , carbon nanotube (CNT) 27 , poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) 28 or polyaniline 29 , fabrics comprised of TE are only at the early stage and far from practical implementation, largely due to unavailability of industrially scalable and costeffective fabrication techniques. Notably, most wearable TE based textiles are realized by coating regular bers with TE sheaths 26 , lling TE materials at the interspace of the fabrics 30 or incorporating of other bers to form yarns 31 , which will inevitable lower space e ciency and fray/wear out with extended mechanical friction and deformation induced by body movement, resulting in unstable and attenuated performance. Given the usual wearable operating temperature (lower than 100 o C) and continual contact with skin, the organic TE materials are especially suitable for textile electronics due to the advantages of earth-abundance, nontoxicity, light-weight and ease of synthesis.…”

Superhydrophobic, Elastic, and Conducting Polyurethane-Carbon Nanotube–Silane–Aerogel Composite Microfiber

“…These properties have been utilized in strain sensors to obtain real-time mechanical feedback in the fields of personal health monitoring, human motion detection, and soft robotics [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Such sensors were also applied to the human body to detect ultraviolet (UV) light, chemicals, humidity, and temperature change, either as a portable device or a patch attached to the skin [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Flexible conductive fibers have also attracted interest for use in supercapacitors, interconnects, photovoltaic cells, light-emitting diodes, and artificial skin [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”