Scalable thermoelectric fibers for multifunctional textile-electronics

Textile electronics are poised to revolutionize future wearable applications due to their wearing comfort and programmable nature. Many promising thermoelectric wearables have been extensively investigated for green energy harvesting and pervasive sensors connectivity. However, the practical applications of the TE textile are still hindered by the current laborious p/n junctions assembly of limited scale and mechanical compliance. Here we develop a gelation extrusion strategy that demonstrates the viability of digitalized manufacturing of continuous p/n TE fibers at high scalability and process efficiency. With such alternating p/n-type TE fibers, multifunctional textiles are successfully woven to realize energy harvesting on curved surface, multi-pixel touch panel for writing and communication. Moreover, modularized TE garments are worn on a robotic arm to fulfill diverse active and localized tasks. Such scalable TE fiber fabrication not only brings new inspiration for flexible devices, but also sets the stage for a wide implementation of multifunctional textile-electronics. Despite the potential of incorporating thermoelectric (TE) fibers into textile electronics for green energy harvesting, existing fabrication methods are not commercially viable. Here, the authors report a scalable gelation extrusion fabrication strategy for realizing alternating p/n-type TE fibers.