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Deformable Textile-Structured Triboelectric Nanogenerator Knitted with Multifunctional Sensing Fibers for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting

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Abstract

Fibers and textiles that harvest mechanical energy via the triboelectric effect are promising candidates as power supplies for wearable electronics. However, triboelectric fibers and textiles are often hindered by problems such as complex fabrication processes, limited length, performances below the state-of-the-art of 2D planar configurations, etc. Here, we demonstrated a scalable fabrication of core-sheath-structured elastomer triboelectric fibers that combine silicone hollow tubes with gel-electrodes. Gel-electrodes were fabricated via a facile freeze–thawing process of blending polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), gelatin, glycerin, poly (3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene): poly (styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS), and sodium chloride (NaCl). Such fibers can also be knitted into deformable triboelectric nanogenerator textiles with high electrical outputs up to 106 V and 0.8 μA, which could work as reliable power supplies for small electronics. Moreover, we demonstrated fabric materials recognition, Morse code communication, and human-motion-recognition capabilities, making such triboelectric fiber platform an exciting avenue for multifunctional wearable systems and human–machine interaction.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant number JP20H00288).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Medicine, Science and Technology, Shinshu University, 3-15-1 Tokida, Ueda, Nagano, 386-8567, Japan

    Li Dong, Mingxu Wang, Jiajia Wu, Chunhong Zhu & Hideaki Morikawa

  2. Institute for Fiber Engineering (IFES), Interdisciplinary Cluster for Cutting Edge Research (ICCER), Shinshu University, 3-15-1 Tokida, Ueda, Nagano, 386-8567, Japan

    Chunhong Zhu & Hideaki Morikawa

  3. Faculty of Textile Science and Technology, Shinshu University, 3-15-1 Tokida, Ueda, Nagano, 386-8567, Japan

    Chunhong Zhu & Hideaki Morikawa

  4. Faculty of Systems Science and Technology, Akita Prefectural University, 84-4 Aza Ebinokuchi Tsuchiya, Yurihonjo, Akita, 015-0055, Japan

    Jian Shi

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  1. Li Dong
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  2. Mingxu Wang
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Correspondence to Chunhong Zhu or Hideaki Morikawa.

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Dong, L., Wang, M., Wu, J. et al. Deformable Textile-Structured Triboelectric Nanogenerator Knitted with Multifunctional Sensing Fibers for Biomechanical Energy Harvesting. Adv. Fiber Mater. 4, 1486–1499 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-022-00181-4

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