Traditional weaving craft for one-piece self-charging power textile for wearable electronics

Self-charging power textile (SCPT) based on energy harvesting and energy storing components for developing wearable electronics exhibits great advantages. However, some problems (stability, weaving methods etc.) in previous work prevent this kind of SCPT for further application and industrial scale-up manufacture. Herein, in this work, we propose a novel SCPT consisting of a fabric triboelectric nanogenerator (FTENG) and a woven supercapacitor (W-SC) for simultaneously harvesting and storing human motion energy. Utilizing traditional woven craft, this one-piece self-power/self-charging power textile can be easily fabricated by alternating the woven wires/threads. For the energy-generating component, we successfully build the contact-separation mode, free-standing mode and other complex patterned TENG on a piece of textile by weaving cotton, carbon and PTFE wires on the handloom. Several key parameters (the diameter of PTFE wire, working frequency, etc.) on the output performance of TENG are systematically studied. For the energy-storing component, utilizing RuO2 coated carbon fiber and cotton threads, we fabricate W-SC during the weaving process with a stable cotton separator between two fiber electrodes, which possesses extremely high stability for mechanical deformation. Finally, this SCPT is demonstrated to have harvested energy through common daily activities such as running and walking, and simultaneously to have powered the wearable electronics, such as an electric watch. Results show that our newly designed SCPT has great potential for wearable electronics and large scale industrial production.