A new flexible power source has been designed to expand applications for self‐powered stretchable electronics in wearable and biomedical electronics. Stretchable supercapacitors hold onto electrical charge and release it as necessary, and can be pulled to 800% of their original size for thousands of cycles and continue functioning.
The 3D, vertical CNTs are 10-30 micrometers high. Source: Michigan State University
The power devices engineered by researchers from Michigan State University, Duke University, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China) and MIT are based on crumpled vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) forests transferred onto an elastomer substrate. The 3D, vertical CNTs are 10-30 micrometers high and can stretch and conform to large surface areas without losing electrical conductivity. Crumpled CNT forest electrodes can be easily modified with impregnated metal oxide nanoparticles to improve the specific capacitance and energy density of the supercapacitors.
Electrical conduction is maintained even when the material is stretched in more than one direction, making the CNT forests suitable for inclusion in wearable medical monitors that must conform to body surfaces or in implantable devices that diagnose disease or track patient health.
