Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 12, Issue 15, Pages 17933-17940Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b19837
Keywords
thermoelectric wearables; liquid metal; stretchable electronics; thermoelectric energy harvesting; liquid metal embedded elastomer; multifunctional composites; thermal interface; stretchable thermoelectric generator
Funding
- Air Force Office of Sponsored Research [FA9550-18-1-0566]
- National Science Foundation [1635824]
- Directorate For Engineering
- Div Of Civil, Mechanical, & Manufact Inn [1635824] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Stretchable thermoelectric generators (TEGs) capable of harvesting electrical energy from body heat under cold weather conditions have the potential to make wearable electronic and robotic systems more lightweight and portable by reducing their dependency on on-board batteries. However, progress depends on the integration of soft conductive materials for robust electrical wiring and thermal management. The use of thermally conductive soft elastomers is especially important for conforming to the body, absorbing body heat, and maintaining a temperature gradient between the two sides of the TEGs in order to generate power. Here, we introduce a soft-matter TEG architecture composed of electrically and thermally conductive liquid metal embedded elastomer (LMEE) composites with integrated arrays of n-type and p-type Bi2Te3 semiconductors. The incorporation of a LMEE as a multifunctional encapsulating material allows for the seamless integration of 100 thermoelectric semiconductor elements into a simplified material layup that has a dimension of 41.0 x 47.3 x 3.0 mm. These stretchable thermoelectric devices generate voltages of 59.96 mV at Delta 10 degrees C, 130 mV at Delta 30 degrees C, and 278.6 mV and a power of 86.6 mu W/cm(2) at Delta 60 degrees C. Moreover, they do not electrically or mechanically fail when stretched to strains above 50%, making them well-suited for energy harvesting in soft electronics and wearable computing applications.
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