Piezoelectric-Driven Self-Powered Patterned Electrochromic Supercapacitor for Human Motion Energy Harvesting

Abstract

The rapid development of a self-powered system (SPS) has aroused an increasing interest in the field of wearable electronics. The current development trend in wearable electronics is toward integration, portability, miniaturization, and sustainability. Hence, a wearable piezoelectric-driven self-powered patterned electrochromic supercapacitor (ESC) is presented here, which is integrated with the energy harvesting, conversion, storage and indication technologies. The patterned polyaniline (PANI) electrodes electrodeposited by coupling cyclic voltammetric and galvanostatic (CV-GS) techniques were assembled as patterned ESC, which served to store the energy and indicate the charging/discharging status simultaneously. With the advantages of flexibility and biocompatibility, the polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning to establish the piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) as the energy-harvesting device, which can be attached to human body to harvest mechanical kinetic energy. The integrated wearable self-powered system (SPS) can harvest human motion energy and other mechanical energy, then transfer the mechanical energy to electric energy by a rectifier for charging ESC, which provides a sustainable energy supply for wearable electronics. It is foreseen that the self-powered patterned ESC that we proposed will have a broad application in the fields of flexible artificial skin, smart robots, artificial intelligence, and implantable or portable medical devices.