Triboelectric Textiles: Eliminating Physical Spacers for Seamless Wearable Integration and Motion Tracking

Wearable electronics have evolved beyond their bulky origins, now merging seamlessly into everyday clothing, enhancing both functionality and comfort. Our research team has been dedicated to developing triboelectric textiles that can be effortlessly integrated into clothing for subtle movement tracking and natural body motion energy harvesting.

In a joint effort with multiple institutions, our group members Yinghong, Sunil, Chiara, and Carlo developed a spacer-free electrospun nanofiber-based full-textile triboelectric nanogenerator (EF-TENG). The EF-TENG introduces micro-gaps into the textile through amine-halogen tribo-pair nanofibers, enhancing output fourfold. It can be integrated into everyday garments like shirts, pants, and socks via traditional sewing. This advanced textile detects continuous angular changes and exhibits high sensitivity to subtle movements, including tremors like those in simulated Parkinson's disease.

Additionally, a lightweight, pocket-sized signal acquisition and transmission module ensures unobtrusive wearability for motion tracking and energy harvesting from natural human activities. This advancement enables the creation of smart garments that can power wearable electronics, monitor health, and facilitate human-machine interactions, all while being unobtrusive, breathable, and comfortable for the wearer. One could even say the team have "eliminated" the need for physical spacers and "enhanced" the potential of triboelectric textiles for wearable applications.

Read the full article by clicking on this link: external page https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2025.02.016