Self-powered ultrasensitive and highly stretchable temperature-strain sensing composite yarns

With the emergence of stretchable/wearable devices, functions, such as sensing, energy storage/harvesting, and electrical conduction, should ideally be carried out by a single material, while retaining its ability to withstand large elastic deformations, to create compact, functionally-integrated and autonomous systems. A new class of trimodal, stretchable yarn-based transducer formed by coating commercially available Lycra (R) yarns with PEDOT:PSS is presented. The material developed can sense strain (first mode), and temperature (second mode) and can power itself thermoelectrically (third mode), eliminating the need for an external power-supply. The yarns were extensively characterized and obtained an ultrahigh (gauge factor similar to 3.6 x 10(5), at 10-20% strain) and tunable (up to about 2 orders of magnitude) strain sensitivity together with a very high strain-at-break point (up to similar to 1000%). These PEDOT:PSS-Lycra yarns also exhibited stable thermoelectric behavior (Seebeck coefficient of 15 mu V K-1), which was exploited both for temperature sensing and self-powering (similar to 0.5 mu W, for a 10-couple module at Delta T similar to 95 K). The produced material has potential to be interfaced with microcontroller-based systems to create internet-enabled, internet-of-things type devices in a variety of form factors.

Automated summary

The translation introduces a new trimodal stretchable yarn-based transducer coating commercially available Lycra yarns with PEDOT:PSS. This material can sense strain, temperature, and power itself thermoelectrically, offering potential for creating internet-enabled devices in various form factors.