Weft‐Knitted Fabric for a Highly Stretchable and Low‐Voltage Wearable Heater

Mingchao Zhang, Chunya Wang, Xiaoping Liang, Zhe Yin, Kailun Xia, Muqiang Jian, Yingying Zhang

Advanced Electronic Materials · 2017 · 171 citations · 29 references

Concepts

TL;DR

Wearable heaters are sought for personal heating and healthcare, including heat preservation in textiles and thermotherapy. The study aims to preserve heating performance under large deformation for wearable heaters. The heater is fabricated from electrically conductive weft‑knitted fabrics transformed by heat treatment, exploiting the knit structure to achieve high stretchability and performance. The Modal-based heater reaches over 100 °C at 3 V, retains performance under 70 % strain, and its power and temperature can be tuned by fabric geometry, demonstrating suitability for wearable thermal therapy.

Abstract

Wearable heaters have attracted broad attention due to their applications in personal heating systems and healthcare management, such as heat preservation in textile/clothing and thermotherapy. Protecting heating performance against deterioration under large deformation is is important for the application of wearable heaters. Here, a highly stretchable electrically driven heater based on electrically conductive weft‐knitted fabrics is reported, which can be transformed from traditional fabrics through a facile heat treatment process. As an example, a heater made from Modal shows a heating temperature higher than 100 °C at a driving voltage as low as 3 V. The Joule heating performance of the heater does not deteriorate even under a large strain of 70%. Furthermore, according to theoretical analysis and experimental results, the output power and saturated temperature of the heater under a certain voltage can be easily tuned by tailoring the shape and size of the fabric to meet customized demands. The superior performance of the heater originates from the weft‐knitted structural configuration. Finally, the application of the ultrastretchable heater in wearable thermal therapy devices is demonstrated, showing its great potential in wearable electronics.

References

29