Flexible fiber batteries for applications in smart textiles
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Flexible fiber batteries for applications in smart textiles Hang Qu*3, Jean-Pierre Bourgeois*1, Julien Rolland1, Alexandru Vlad2, Jean-François Gohy1 and Maksim Skorobogatiy3† 1. Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (IMCN), Université catholique de Louvain, Place L. Pasteur 1, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium 2. Institute of Information and communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain la Neuve, B-1348 Belgium 3. Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Department of Engineering Physics, C.P. 6079, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal (Québec), Canada H3C 3A7 † Corresponding author * These authors contributed equally to the paper
ABSTRACT Here we discuss two alternative approaches for building flexible batteries for applications in smart textiles. The first approach uses well-studied inorganic electrochemistry (Al-NaOCl galvanic cell) and innovative packaging in order to produce batteries in a slender and flexible fiber form that can be further weaved directly into the textiles. During fabrication process the battery electrodes are co-drawn within a microstructured polymer fiber, which is later filled with liquid electrolyte. The second approach describes Li-ion chemistry within solid polymer electrolytes that are used to build a fully solid and soft rechargeable battery that can be furthermore stitched onto a textile, or integrated as stripes during weaving process. INTRODUCTION With the rapid development of micro and nanotechnologies and driven by the need to increase the value of conventional textile products, fundamental and applied research into smart textiles has recently flourished [1-3]. Generally speaking, textiles are defined as “smart” if they can respond to the environmental stimulus, such as mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, and magnetic. Many applications of “smart” textiles stem from the combination of textiles and electronics (e-textiles).Most of the “smart” functionalities in the early prototypes of e-textiles were enabled by integrating conventional rigid electronic devices into a textile matrix. The fundamental incompatibility of the rigid electronic components and a soft textile matrix create a significant barrier for spreading of this technology into wearables. This problem motivated many recent efforts into the development of soft electronics for truly wearable smart textile. This implies that the electronic device must be energy efficient to limit the size of the battery used to power it. Needless to say that to drive all the electronics in a smart textile one needs an efficient, lightweight and flexible battery source. Ideally, such a source will be directly in the form of a fiber that can be naturally integrated into smart textile during weaving. In this paper we report two alternative approaches towards producing soft batteries for smart textile application. One approach uses relatively simple inorganic electrochemistry and innovative packaging, while another one uses a more complex Li-ion chemistry wit
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