Invited Paper TF+EM+NS+SS-ThM1
Redesigning Batteries into Efficient Energy Harvesters and Sensors for Wearable Applications

Thursday, October 24, 2019, 8:00 am, Room A122-123

Here I will discuss the research efforts of my team demonstrating how active materials utilized in batteries can be reconfigured into an electrochemical framework to harvest, rather than store, energy. This new functionality of battery materials arises from the fundamental coupling between mechanical stresses and electrochemistry that my group has demonstrated while investigating the “strain-engineering” of battery materials. By exploiting this coupling in a symmetric cell device configuration, we are able to construct devices that convert mechanical energy to electrical energy by mechanical modulation of the electrochemical reaction potential. I will discuss the development of this device platform from proof-of-concept device fabrication using 2D materials to our most recent demonstration of textile-integrated biocompatible fibers integrated into fabrics for harvesting/sensing of human motion. Most notably, I will discuss how the sluggish diffusion kinetics of ions between two electrodes – whereas a challenge for emerging battery applications, enables these devices to measure a continuous response from the whole broad range of frequencies associated with human motion. This allows these wearable harvesters to provide real-time sensing data that can be directly correlated with dynamic human motion models. This new approach leverages the efficient nature of electrochemistry, the wide range of materials selection and chemistries relevant for batteries, and without any of the safety concerns of batteries due to the symmetric electrode configuration.