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Researchers at UMass Amherst, led by materials chemist Trisha L. Andrew, said they have developed a method to create a load storage system that easily integrates into clothing to "embroider a pattern. storage of loads on any garment ". Credit: UMass Amherst / Trisha Andrew
The lack of a light and sustainable power supply is a major factor hindering the development of portable biosensors for health monitoring. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, led by materials chemist Trisha L. Andrew, said they have developed a method to create a load storage system that easily integrates into clothing to "embroider a pattern of storing loads on any garment".
As Andrew explains, "Batteries or other types of charge storage are still the limiting components of most wearable, portable, ingestible, or flexible technologies." The devices tend to be a combination of too big, Too heavy and not flexible. "
Their new method uses a micro-supercapacitor and combines steam-coated lead wires with a polymer film, as well as a special sewing technique to create a flexible mesh of electrodes aligned on a textile backing. The resulting semiconductor device has a large capacity to store charges for its size and other features enabling it to power portable biosensors.
Andrew adds that while researchers have remarkably miniaturized many electronic circuit components, the same could not be said of charge storage devices. "With this paper, we show that we can literally embroider a pattern of storing loads on any garment using the steam-coated yarns made by our lab.This opens the door to simply sewing circuits on smart clothes self-powered. " Details appear online in ACS Applied materials and interfaces.
Andrew, Lushuai Zhang, postdoctoral researcher and lead author, and Wesley Viola, graduate student in chemical engineering, point out that supercapacitors are ideal candidates for portable charge storage circuits because they have higher power densities than batteries.
But "incorporating electrochemically active materials with high electrical conductivities and rapid ion transport in textiles is a challenge," they add. Andrew and colleagues show that their steam coating process creates porous conductive polymer films on strongly twisted wires, which can easily swell with electrolyte ions and maintain a high charge storage capacity per unit length compared to a previous work with dyed or extruded fibers.
Andrew, who runs the clothing electronics lab at UMass Amherst, notes that textile scientists tend not to use vapor deposition due to technical difficulties and high costs, but more recently research has technology can be developed and remain profitable. .
She and her team are currently working with the personalized health monitoring center of the UMass Amherst Institute's Personalized Health Monitoring Center for Life Sciences to incorporate new load storage arrays. Embroidered with electronic textile sensors and low power microprocessors to create smart clothing that can monitor the person's gait and joint movements throughout a normal day.
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More information:
Lushuai Zhang et al., Super integrated supercapacitors in a garment, high energy density, intended for the supply of portable electronic products. Applied materials and interfaces ACS (2018). DOI: 10.1021 / acsami.8b08408
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