Textiles have been concomitant of human civilization for thousands of years. With the advances in chemistry and materials, integrating textiles with energy harvesters will provide a sustainable, environmentally friendly, pervasive, and wearable energy solution for distributed on-body electronics in the era of Internet of Things. This article comprehensively and thoughtfully reviews research activities regarding the utilization of smart textiles for harvesting energy from renewable energy sources on the human body and its surroundings. Specifically, we start with a brief introduction to contextualize the significance of smart textiles in light of the emerging energy crisis, environmental pollution, and public health. Next, we systematically review smart textiles according to their abilities to harvest biomechanical energy, body heat energy, biochemical energy, solar energy as well as hybrid forms of energy. Finally, we provide a critical analysis of smart textiles and insights into remaining challenges and future directions. With worldwide efforts, innovations in chemistry and materials elaborated in this review will push forward the frontiers of smart textiles, which will soon revolutionize our lives in the era of Internet of Things.

Smart Textiles for Electricity Generation.

Wearable thermoelectric devices show promise to generate electricity in a ubiquitous, unintermittent and noiseless way for on-body applications. Three-dimensional thermoelectric textiles (TETs) outperform other types in smart textiles owing to their out-of-plane thermoelectric generation and good structural conformability with fabrics. Yet, there has been a lack of efficient strategies in scalable manufacture of TETs for sustainably powering electronics. Here, we fabricate organic spacer fabric shaped TETs by sewing carbon nanotube yarn based segmented thermoelectric textiles on a large scale. Combining finite element analysis with experimental evaluation, we elucidate that the fabric structure significantly influences the power generation. The optimally designed TET with good wearability and stability shows a high output power density of 51.5 mW m−2 and a high specific power of 171.7 μW (g K)−1 at ΔT = 47.5 K. The promising on-body application of the TET in directly and continuously powering electronics for healthcare and environmental monitoring is fully demonstrated. This work will broaden the research vision and provide new routines for developing high-performance and large-scale TETs toward practical applications.

Carbon Nanotube Yarn based Thermoelectric Textiles for Harvesting Thermal Energy and Powering Electronics

Polymer thermoelectric materials have attracted increasing attention and exhibited great potential in green energy conversion due to their inexpensive to process, lightweight, mechanical flexibility, and intrinsic low thermal conductivity in the past decades. Integration of polymers with nanofillers has been one main approach to tailor the thermoelectric properties of polymers, which not only combines the properties of each component but also displays interesting transport phenomenon induced by the interfaces between polymers and nanofillers. In this review, we discussed the thermoelectric properties of polymer composites, especially for the conducting polymer based composites, including polymer/inorganic, polymer/carbon nanofillers, polymer/polymer hybrids. The fabrication and structure-dependent thermoelectric properties were discussed. In addition, polymer composites based thermoelectric devices were also systematically addressed, and potential issues in the devices fabrication were also analyzed. Regarding the future research opportunities, some visionary discussion was also provided.

Polymer composites-based thermoelectric materials and devices

Integrating thermoelectric generators (TEGs) into textiles is attractive for body heat harvesting to power wearable electronics. Textile‐integrated TEGs have the advantage of conformity to the body that ensures efficient heat transfer and does not impede movement. Additive printing techniques and solution processable polymer‐based thermoelectric (TE) materials can be used for this purpose. However, a number of fabrication challenges limit the realization of a printed polymer‐based textile TEG using a low cost, scalable, and textile compatible process. In this work, stencil and transfer printing techniques are successfully employed to fabricate a 32‐leg device with a modest fill factor (≈30%) on a commercial sports fabric substrate. PEDOT:PSS and Poly[Na(NiETT)] are formulated into inks and used as the p‐type and the n‐type polymer materials, respectively. The textile‐integrated TE device yields an open circuit voltage of ≈3 mV at ΔT = 3 K. The fabrication process is scaled up to demonstrate an 864‐leg device that yields a voltage output of ≈47 mV. This work is the first demonstration of a textile TEG based on p‐ and n‐type conducting polymers capable of through‐plane body heat harvesting. It serves as a proof‐of‐concept for integrating TE devices into mainstream fabrics and clothing.

A Textile‐Integrated Polymer Thermoelectric Generator for Body Heat Harvesting

The materials commonly used to fabricate thermoelectric devices are tellurium, lead, and germanium. These materials ensure the best thermoelectric performance, but exhibit drawbacks in terms of availability, sustainability, cost, and manufacturing complexity. Moreover, they do not guarantee a safe and cheap implementation in wearable thermoelectric applications. Here, p‐Type and n‐type flexible thermoelectric textiles are produced with sustainable and low‐cost materials through green and scalable processes. Cotton is functionalized with inks made with biopolyester and carbon nanomaterials. Depending on the nanofiller, i.e., graphene nanoplatelets, carbon nanotubes, or carbon nanofibers, positive or negative Seebeck coefficient values are obtained, resulting in a remarkable electrical conductivity value of 55 S cm−1 using carbon nanotubes. The best bending and washing stability are registered for the carbon nanofiber‐based biocomposites, which increase their electrical resistance by 5 times after repeated bending cycles and only by 30% after washing. Finally, in‐plane flexible thermoelectric generators coupling the best p‐ and n‐type materials are fabricated and analysed, resulting in an output voltage of ≈1.65 mV and a maximum output power of ≈1.0 nW by connecting only 2 p/n thermocouples at a temperature difference of 70 °C.

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Green Biocomposites for Thermoelectric Wearable Applications

Wearable electronic devices such as medical sensors, hearing aids and wristwatches can run on power of μW levels. Thermoelectric (TE) generators have the potential to provide power to wearable electronic devices, because they can effectively convert body heat into electrical energy. This study presents a flexible TE generator by applying single-walled carbon nanotube/polyaniline (SWNT/PANI) composites to polyesters, and it was found that ultrasonic induction can enhance the interfacial stability between SWNT/PANI composites and polyesters. The flexible TE generator can generate a TE voltage of 3.82 mV at a temperature difference of 115 K. Moreover, the TE generator can supply a maximum output power of 48.0 nW to the load at a temperature difference of 75 K. In addition to good flexibility and ventilation, the SWNT/PANI textile TE generator displays no change in performance on repeated bending for 150 cycles with a radius of 5 mm, which is important for wearable electronic devices.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes/polyaniline-coated polyester thermoelectric textile with good interface stability prepared by ultrasonic induction

The invention relates to a preparation method of a flexible carbon nanotube-polyaniline thermoelectric device. The method comprises the following steps: adding a carbon nanotube and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate to an HCl solution and carrying out ultrasonic treatment and cell discruption; adding aniline, carrying out ultrasonic treatment and stirring the solution under the condition of an ice bath to obtain a carbon nanotube-aniline dispersion liquid; dropwise adding the HCl solution of ammonium persulfate, carrying out reaction and then obtaining a carbon nanotube-polyaniline dispersion liquid; putting fabric into a sodium hydroxide solution for heating, putting the solution into water at 60-90 DEG C for stirring, and taking out and drying the fabric; adding the fabric into the carbon nanotube-polyaniline dispersion liquid, carrying out ultrasonic treatment and drying, and repeating fabric dipping and drying steps; and cutting terylene obtained by drying into rectangular strips, alternately fixing the rectangular strips on a flexible substrate and connecting the rectangular strips with conductive fibers in parallel. The method is simple; the prepared carbon nanotube-polyaniline composite thermoelectric fabric has the advantages of being light in quality, good in flexibility and foldable, and can be assembled into a large-scale portable thermoelectric device.

Preparation method of flexible carbon nanotube-polyaniline thermoelectric device

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Single-walled carbon nanotubes/polyaniline-coated polyester thermoelectric textile with good interface stability prepared by ultrasonic induction

Preparation method of flexible carbon nanotube-polyaniline thermoelectric device