Monday, 1 October 2018
Universal Ballroom (Expo Center)
Owing to rapid development of wearable electronics, demand for energy storage devices with high flexibility, light weight, and improved energy density has been remarkably increasing. Even though previous researchers have developed various types of flexible batteries, not many of them are weavable, stretchable and having high capacity at the same time. In this work, we fabricated fibrous all-in-one electrode threads to make truly weavable lithium ion batteries(LIB). They are enabled by nanosized hybrid active layers with biological gluing inner layer and protective outer membrane shell. Each thread is comprised of four distinct concentric coating layers, a carbon fiber core as current collector, a conductive biological gluing layer, active materials, and a porous membrane layer. Nanosized LiFePO4/C-rGO and Li4Ti5O12/rGO are used for cathode and anode threads. Enhanced mechanical strength of electrode threads was achieved by biological glue that can hold the active materials from the fibrous core and an inline coating process of porous membrane layer on active materials. This unique all-in-one structure and mechanical stability allowed twisting and hierarchical weaving for higher energy density of the batteries. The fibrous monolith LIB showed a high linear capacity of 1.6 mAh cm-1 and this value could be further enhanced with the way of twisting multiple threads. The fibrous LIB could also be woven into a fabric presenting stable operation under 50% of elongation via encoded structural deformation in the fabric structure.