High performance yarn battery for energy textiles

Abstract

Yarn batteries for energy textiles are the future trend for the development of personalized electronics. In this paper, high performance yarn batteries are fabricated from electrodepositing nickel cobalt oxide and zinc on hydrothermal treated 316L stainless steel conductive yarns individually. The nickel cobalt oxide-deposited and zincdeposited conductive yarns are worked as cathode and anode respectively. The yarn batteries show high specific capacities of 0.18 mAh cm-2 and 10.7 mAh cm-3 in aqueous electrolyte (two-electrode cell) or 5 mAh cm-3 in solid-state electrolyte (two-electrode cell). The solid-state yarn batteries perform well with high power densities of 12.5 mW cm-2 and 2.5 W cm-3 and high energy densities of 0.14 mWh cm-2 and 0.008 mW cm-3 normalized to the area and volume of the batteries. The assembled solid-state yarn batteries are also used to power up a set of LEDs for demonstration.