Advanced materials for flexible and wearable energy storage devices

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Energy Storage
• Wearable Electronics

Background:

• Wearable electronics require lightweight, flexible, and self-sustaining energy storage.
• Flexible supercapacitors (FSCs) offer high power density, fast charging, and mechanical flexibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advancements in materials, fabrication, and self-charging systems for next-generation wearable supercapacitors.
• To highlight hybrid materials and integrated energy harvesting for autonomous operation.

Main Methods:

• Review of materials including conductive polymers, nanomaterials, MXenes, oxides, MOFs, COFs, and hybrids.
• Discussion of advanced fabrication techniques like 3D printing, various spinning methods, printing, and laser writing.
• Analysis of hybrid materials combining electrical double-layer capacitance (EDLC) and pseudocapacitance.

Main Results:

• Hybrid materials and advanced fabrication enhance electrode structure, ion transport, conductivity, and mechanical integrity.
• Integration of EDLC and pseudocapacitive materials boosts energy density and electrochemical performance.
• Wearable self-charging power systems combining FSCs with triboelectric generators (TENGs) enable biomechanical energy harvesting.

Conclusions:

• Recent progress in materials, fabrication, and integrated systems is driving the development of high-performance wearable supercapacitors.
• Hybrid materials and advanced manufacturing techniques are key to optimizing FSC performance.
• Self-charging systems utilizing biomechanical energy harvesting offer a pathway to autonomous and uninterrupted operation of wearable devices.