Flexible Electronics and Self-Powered Systems

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Interests: triboelectric nanogenerator; energy harvesting; flexible electronics; self-powered system

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Guest Editor
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Interests: biomimetic nanocomposites; advanced micro-/nanofabrication; soft electronics; biomedical devices

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Interests: energy harvesting; vibration; sensor; smart materials and structures; mechatronics

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Guest Editor
Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Interests: nano sensing materials; nanogenerator; self-powered sensing; flexible electronics; smart sensors
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Flexible electronics describes the technologies to make the electronic systems flexible, which can be achieved by either assembling electronics and circuits in flexible substrates, or making electronic devices flexible by themselves. It has become a hot research topic in the past a few decades, due to the increasing demands on the wearable and implantable devices, and the demonstrated applications in biosensors, e-skin, e-paper, transmission units, and flexible display. Various efforts have been made to develop flexible interconnect structures, flexible functional devices, and flexible materials including conductors, semiconductors, and insulators. The advantages of flexible electronics make it a promising candidate for the next-generation consumer electronics, setting the solid fundaments for the Internet of Things (IoT), the big data, and so on. However, considering the trillions of wide-distributed devices are needed in applications, the energy consumption becomes a big concern: firstly, using electric grids to power these devices is not feasible; secondly, if only the batteries are used, the limited lifetime will become a key limiting factor. Therefore, the development of the flexible electronics requires advancement in the research about energy technologies.

At the same time, energy harvesting and storage technologies are being rapidly developed to satisfy the power needs of electronics. By using these technologies, energy in the ambient environment can be converted into electricity through various mechanisms (such as triboelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic and piezoelectric effects for mechanical energy; thermoelectric and pyroelectric effects for thermal energy; photovoltaic effect for solar energy; and so on), and managed/stored in energy storage devices (such batteries and supercapacitors) with proper electrical circuits, composing self-powered systems. Previously, the major challenges to form a self-powered system is the power needs from the electronics are usually higher than the energy generated. Considering the power consumption in flexible electronics is getting lower and lower, and the existing energy harvesting/storage technologies are being pushed to achieve higher efficiency, the gap between the energy needs and generation is being reduced. Simultaneously, these energy devices have been developed to be flexible as well, making the possibility to form self-powered flexible systems. Research in this field has drawn worldwide interests in the past decade.

This special issue will focus on the development of these fields, including both the flexible electronics and self-powered systems. It will reflect the worldwide efforts to push the related research fields toward two goals: one is the development of applications on the flexible electronics and self-powered systems, to facilitate the development of the IoT, the big data, wearable technology, smart garments, and so on; the other one is further understandings on the related mechanism and physical process, contributing on the fundamental physics in devices. Authors are invited to submit regular papers following the JLPEA (Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications) submission guidelines within the remit of this special issue call. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • Flexible electronic materials
  • Flexible and wearable electronic devices
  • Soft bioelectronics
  • Low power flexible electronics
  • Flexible energy harvesting technologies
  • Flexible energy storage technologies
  • Flexible self-powered systems

Prof. Yunlong Zi
Dr. Lizhi Xu
Prof. Zhengbao Yang
Prof. Zhen Wen
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Flexible electronics
  • Self-powered system
  • Soft bioelectronics
  • Flexible energy devices
  • Wearable technology

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 4992 KiB  
Article
PEDOT: PSS Thermoelectric Generators Printed on Paper Substrates
by Henrik Andersson, Pavol Šuly, Göran Thungström, Magnus Engholm, Renyun Zhang, Jan Mašlík and Håkan Olin
J. Low Power Electron. Appl. 2019, 9(2), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea9020014 - 30 Mar 2019
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 8039
Abstract
Flexible electronics is a field gathering a growing interest among researchers and companies with widely varying applications, such as organic light emitting diodes, transistors as well as many different sensors. If the circuit should be portable or off-grid, the power sources available are [...] Read more.
Flexible electronics is a field gathering a growing interest among researchers and companies with widely varying applications, such as organic light emitting diodes, transistors as well as many different sensors. If the circuit should be portable or off-grid, the power sources available are batteries, supercapacitors or some type of power generator. Thermoelectric generators produce electrical energy by the diffusion of charge carriers in response to heat flux caused by a temperature gradient between junctions of dissimilar materials. As wearables, flexible electronics and intelligent packaging applications increase, there is a need for low-cost, recyclable and printable power sources. For such applications, printed thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are an interesting power source, which can also be combined with printable energy storage, such as supercapacitors. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate), or PEDOT:PSS, is a conductive polymer that has gathered interest as a thermoelectric material. Plastic substrates are commonly used for printed electronics, but an interesting and emerging alternative is to use paper. In this article, a printed thermoelectric generator consisting of PEDOT:PSS and silver inks was printed on two common types of paper substrates, which could be used to power electronic circuits on paper. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible Electronics and Self-Powered Systems)
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7 pages, 3068 KiB  
Communication
Including Liquid Metal into Porous Elastomeric Films for Flexible and Enzyme-Free Glucose Fuel Cells: A Preliminary Evaluation
by Denis Desmaële, Francesco La Malfa, Francesco Rizzi, Antonio Qualtieri and Massimo De Vittorio
J. Low Power Electron. Appl. 2018, 8(4), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea8040045 - 22 Nov 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6647
Abstract
This communication introduces a new flexible elastomeric composite film, which can directly convert the chemical energy of glucose into electricity. The fabrication process is simple, and no specific equipment is required. Notably, the liquid metal Galinstan is exploited with a two-fold objective: (i) [...] Read more.
This communication introduces a new flexible elastomeric composite film, which can directly convert the chemical energy of glucose into electricity. The fabrication process is simple, and no specific equipment is required. Notably, the liquid metal Galinstan is exploited with a two-fold objective: (i) Galinstan particles are mixed with polydimethylsiloxane to obtain a highly conductive porous thick film scaffold; (ii) the presence of Galinstan in the composite film enables the direct growth of highly catalytic gold structures. As a first proof of concept, we demonstrate that when immersed in a 20 mM glucose solution, a 5 mm-long, 5 mm-wide and 2 mm-thick sample can generate a volumetric power density up to 3.6 mW·cm 3 at 7 mA·cm 3 and 0.51 V without using any enzymes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible Electronics and Self-Powered Systems)
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12 pages, 2695 KiB  
Article
Waxberry-Like Nanosphere Li4Mn5O12 as High Performance Electrode Materials for Supercapacitors
by Peiyuan Ji, Yi Xi, Chengshuang Zhang, Chuanshen Wang, Chenguo Hu, Yuzhu Guan and Dazhi Zhang
J. Low Power Electron. Appl. 2018, 8(3), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea8030032 - 11 Sep 2018
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6683
Abstract
Porous materials have superior electrochemical performance owing to its their structure, which could increase the specific and contact area with the electrode. The spinel Li4Mn5O12 has a three-dimensional tunnel structure for a better diffusion path, which has the [...] Read more.
Porous materials have superior electrochemical performance owing to its their structure, which could increase the specific and contact area with the electrode. The spinel Li4Mn5O12 has a three-dimensional tunnel structure for a better diffusion path, which has the advantage of lithium ion insertion and extraction in the framework. However, multi-space spherical materials with single morphologies are rarely studied. In this work, waxberry-like and raspberry-like nanospheres for Li4Mn5O12 have been fabricated by the wet chemistry and solid-state methods for the first time. The diameter of a single waxberry- and raspberry-like nanosphere is about 1 μm and 600 nm, respectively. The specific capacitance of Li4Mn5O12 was 535 mF cm−2 and 147.25 F g−1 at the scan rate of 2 mV s−1, and the energy density was 110.7 Wh kg−1, remaining at 70% after 5000th charge-discharge cycles. Compared with raspberry-like nanosphere Li4Mn5O12, the waxberry-like nanoporous spinel Li4Mn5O12 shows the better electrochemical performance and stability; furthermore, these electrochemical performances have been improved greatly compared to the previous studies. All these results indicate that the waxberry-like nanoporous spinel Li4Mn5O12 could provide a potential application in high performance supercapacitors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible Electronics and Self-Powered Systems)
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