Peining Chen

Novel Electric Double‐Layer Capacitor with a Coaxial Fiber Structure

A coaxial electric double-layer capacitor fiber is developed from the aligned carbon nanotube fiber and sheet, which functions as two electrodes with a polymer gel sandwiched between them. The unique coaxial structure enables a rapid transportation of ions between the two electrodes with a high electrochemical performance. These energy storage fibers are also flexible and stretchable, and can be woven into and widely used for electronic textiles.

A Fiber Supercapacitor with High Energy Density Based on Hollow Graphene/Conducting Polymer Fiber Electrode.

A hollow graphene/conducting polymer composite fiber is created with high mechanical and electronic properties and used to fabricate novel fiber-shaped supercapacitors that display high energy densities and long life stability. The fiber supercapacitors can be woven into flexible powering textiles that are particularly promising for portable and wearable electronic devices.

Flexible and Stretchable Lithium‐Ion Batteries and Supercapacitors Based on Electrically Conducting Carbon Nanotube Fiber Springs

The construction of lightweight, flexible and stretchable power systems for modern electronic devices without using elastic polymer substrates is critical but remains challenging. We have developed a new and general strategy to produce both freestanding, stretchable, and flexible supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries with remarkable electrochemical properties by designing novel carbon nanotube fiber springs as electrodes. These springlike electrodes can be stretched by over 300 %. In addition, the supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries have a flexible fiber shape that enables promising applications in electronic textiles.

Twisted Aligned Carbon Nanotube/Silicon Composite Fiber Anode for Flexible Wire‐Shaped Lithium‐Ion Battery

Twisted, aligned carbon nanotube/silicon composite fibers with remarkable mechanical and electronic properties are designed to develop novel flexible lithium-ion batteries with a high cyclic stability. The core-sheath architecture and the aligned structure of the composite nanotube offer excellent combined properties.

Electrochromic Fiber‐Shaped Supercapacitors

An electrochromic fiber-shaped super-capacitor is developed by winding aligned carbon nanotube/polyaniline composite sheets on an elastic fiber. The fiber-shaped supercapacitors demonstrate rapid and reversible chromatic transitions under different working states, which can be directly observed by the naked eye. They are also stretchable and flexible, and are woven into textiles to display designed signals in addition to storing energy.

Smart Electronic Textiles

This Review describes the state-of-the-art of wearable electronics (smart textiles). The unique and promising advantages of smart electronic textiles are highlighted by comparing them with the conventional planar counterparts. The main kinds of smart electronic textiles based on different functionalities, namely the generation, storage, and utilization of electricity, are then discussed with an emphasis on the use of functional materials. The remaining challenges are summarized together with important new directions to provide some useful clues for the future development of smart electronic textiles.

Smart, Stretchable Supercapacitors

Smart supercapacitors are developed by depositing conducting polymers onto aligned carbon-nanotube sheets. These supercapacitors rapidly and reversibly demonstrate color changes in response to a variation in the level of stored energy and the chromatic transitions can be directly observed by the naked eye.

Self-Healable Electrically Conducting Wires for Wearable Microelectronics†

Electrically conducting wires play a critical role in the advancement of modern electronics and in particular are an important key to the development of next-generation wearable microelectronics. However, the thin conducting wires can easily break during use, and the whole device fails to function as a result. Herein, a new family of high-performance conducting wires that can self-heal after breaking has been developed by wrapping sheets of aligned carbon nanotubes around polymer fibers. The aligned carbon nanotubes offer an effective strategy for the self-healing of the electric conductivity, whereas the polymer fiber recovers its mechanical strength. A self-healable wire-shaped supercapacitor fabricated from a wire electrode of this type maintained a high capacitance after breaking and self-healing.

Hierarchically arranged helical fibre actuators driven by solvents and vapours.

Mechanical responsiveness in many plants is produced by helical organizations of cellulose microfibrils. However, simple mimicry of these naturally occurring helical structures does not produce artificial materials with the desired tunable actuations. Here, we show that actuating fibres that respond to solvent and vapour stimuli can be created through the hierarchical and helical assembly of aligned carbon nanotubes. Primary fibres consisting of helical assemblies of multiwalled carbon nanotubes are twisted together to form the helical actuating fibres. The nanoscale gaps between the nanotubes and micrometre-scale gaps among the primary fibres contribute to the rapid response and large actuation stroke of the actuating fibres. The compact coils allow the actuating fibre to rotate reversibly. We show that these fibres, which are lightweight, flexible and strong, are suitable for a variety of applications such as energy-harvesting generators, deformable sensing springs and smart textiles.

Wearable solar cells by stacking textile electrodes.

A new and general method to produce flexible, wearable dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) textiles by the stacking of two textile electrodes has been developed. A metal-textile electrode that was made from micrometer-sized metal wires was used as a working electrode, while the textile counter electrode was woven from highly aligned carbon nanotube fibers with high mechanical strengths and electrical conductivities. The resulting DSC textile exhibited a high energy conversion efficiency that was well maintained under bending. Compared with the woven DSC textiles that are based on wire-shaped devices, this stacked DSC textile unexpectedly exhibited a unique deformation from a rectangle to a parallelogram, which is highly desired in portable electronics. This lightweight and wearable stacked DSC textile is superior to conventional planar DSCs because the energy conversion efficiency of the stacked DSC textile was independent of the angle of incident light.