Stretchable energy storage E-skin supercapacitors and body movement sensors

Abstract

Electronic skin (e-skin) with natural stimuli is a key factor in prosthetics, robotics, and wearable electronics. At present, most traditional stretchable e-skins fabricated by predesigning complex 3D structures are unsuitable in commercial applications. Energy storage devices with stretchable and arbitrary shapes can widely adapt to wearable electronics. Stretchable supercapacitors and sensors have been used as the primary energy supplies in prosthetics, robotics, and wearable electronics in recent years, because of their superior power density and long calendar life. Here, stretchable energy storage e-skin supercapacitors and sensors were fabricated using two-sublayered silver nanowire (AgNW)/MnO2NW (MNW) hybrid conductive networks fixed into the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer and sandwiched using AgNW/MNW film electrodes and PVA–KOH solid electrolyte. The obtained e-skin device showed large areal specific capacitance, excellent capacity retention, coulombic efficiency of 2000 cycles, and high energy density. The multifunctional e-skin sensors showed an areal specific capacitance of 371 m F cm−2 at a current density of 1 mA cm−2, extended to 160 %, and had superior sensitivity including stretching and bending by hand. Therefore, the multifunctional e-skin sensors are suitable in robotics, prosthetics, and other stretchable wearable devices.