Textile Composite Electrodes for Wearable Batteries and Beyond

Abstract

Wearable energy storage devices are indispensable corner stones for future wearable electronics.
Current energy storage technologies are based on materials and devices that are rigid, bulky, and heavy, making them difficult to wear. On the other hand, fibers are flexible and lightweight materials that can be assembled into different textiles and have been worn by human beings thousands of years. Different from conventional two-dimensional thin films and foils, the three-dimensional fibre and textile structures not only provide superior wearing ability, but also much larger surface areas. This talk will introduce how our research group makes use of the attributes of fibres for high-performance wearable energy storage devices.

We will demonstrate the strategies and discuss the perspectives to modify fibers and textiles for making wearable capacitators and batteries with excellent mechanical durability, electrochemical stability, and high energy/power density. We will also show that the fibrous materials can significantly enhance the stability and energy density of battery for wearable applications and others such as Na battery.

Biography

Speaker: Dr. Zijian Zheng

Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Prof. Zijian Zheng is currently Professor at the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, Associate Director of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, Lead Investigator of Research Institute for Smart Energy at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). His research interests include surface and polymer science, nanofabrication, flexible and wearable electronics, energy conversion and storage. Prof. Zheng received his B. Eng. in Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2003, and PhD in Chemistry at University of Cambridge in 2007 (Supervisor: Prof. Wilhelm T. S. Huck). In 2008-2009, he worked as postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University in the USA. He joined PolyU as Assistant Professor in 2009, and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2013 and Professor in 2017. He has published ~190 papers in high-impact international scientific journals including Science, Nat. Mater., Nat. Comm., Adv. Mate., JACS, Angew. Chem.. He also files 40+ patents and is recipient of more than 15 academic awards. He serves as Guest Editor of Advanced Materials and Small, and Editor-in-Chief of EcoMat, a flagship open-access journal in green energy and environment published by  Wiley. He is elected Founding Member of The Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong (2018), Chang Jiang Chair Professor by the Ministry of Education of China (2020), and Senior Research Fellow of the University Grant Commission of Hong Kong (2021).