Screen-Printing Tribovoltaic Textile for Physiological Monitoring

Wearable electronics are evolving rapidly, with integration into everyday clothing becoming increasingly seamless. Our team has been dedicated to developing fabric-based devices that can efficiently harvest energy and sense physiological signals. Traditional triboelectric textiles often produce alternating current output, leading to energy loss and impedance mismatch when interfacing with commercial electronics. To solve these issues, we've developed a novel tribovoltaic textile using low-cost carbon black as a p-type semiconductor.

The tribovoltaic textile is fabricated using screen printing technology, which ensures the uniform deposition of carbon black and silver onto the textile substrate. The interaction between these materials creates a direct current output through the formation of a Schottky junction. The device's performance is further improved by the inclusion of thermoplastic polyurethane as an interface layer, which enhances the uniformity of the carbon black layer and reduces its resistance. This results in a fourfold increase in output performance and significantly improves the device's durability and stability. The textile demonstrates high sensitivity in sensing natural motion and monitoring health signals when integrated into everyday clothing, offering a practical solution for real-time physiological monitoring.

This advancement offers an economical and scalable strategy for fabricating tribovoltaic textiles, paving the way for the development of smart wearables with enhanced functionality and practicality. The textile's ability to track natural motion and monitor health signals makes it a promising candidate for applications in rehabilitation, sports training, and health monitoring. Its seamless integration into clothing ensures comfort and unobstructed mobility, laying the groundwork for broader applications in healthcare and sportsscience.

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