Abrasion Resistant/Waterproof Stretchable Triboelectric Yarns Based on Fermat Spirals

Emerging energy harvesting yarns, via triboelectric effects, have wide application prospects in new-generation wearable electronics. However, few studies have been carried out regarding simultaneously achieving high electrical performance, mechanical robustness, and comfortability in industrial-scalable yarn. Here, an electronic yarn twisted into Fermat spiral, which has outstanding dynamic structure stability, is reported. The Fermat-spiral-based energy yarns (FSBEY) can simultaneously realize ultrahigh abrasion resistance (over 5000 Martindale standard abrasion cycles), stable reversible strain (100%), and excellent electrical output. Considerably high output (105 V, ≈1.2 µA under 2 Hz) can be attained upon contacting a single yarn (30 cm) with latex material, which is superior to most state-of-the-art stretchable triboelectric yarns. The application of these FSBEY in wireless gesture recognition, smart screen information protection, and harvesting of energy from water dropletsis demonstrated. Moreover, textiles knitted from the FSBEY have distinguished waterproof nature and are breathable. This work shows a feasible proposal for building future "energy garments".