Progress on Carbonene Fibers for Energy Devices

Abstract

Flexible and wearable electronics can integrate multiple functions, such as sensing, actuation, and wireless communication, showing great potential for application in flexible displays, health monitoring, human-computer interaction, and other fields. Energy devices to supply power are an important part of wearable electronics. Traditional energy devices have a relatively rigid plate structure, and their poor mechanical flexibility, low breathability and moisture conductivity make them difficult to adapt to the needs of wearability. These problems have severely limited the development and application of wearable devices, and there is therefore an urgent need to develop flexible, lightweight, high-performance wearable energy devices. Fiber-based energy devices have several obvious advantages. First, the diameter of these devices usually ranges from micrometers to millimeters, which makes them small in size and light in weight. Then, their outstanding flexibility endows them with wearable comfort and stable performance under mechanical deformation. Third, fibers can be woven or knitted into deformable textiles with excellent wearability and breathability. Because of these advantages, fiber-based energy devices have attracted considerable attention. Traditional fiber-based energy devices usually use polymer fibers covered by metal wires as electrodes, but these have inherent defects, such as poor chemical stability, inferior matching with active materials, and a lack of mechanical flexibility, that hinder their application in wearable devices. Carbonene materials are low-dimensional all-carbon materials composed of sp2-hybridized carbon atoms, including carbon nanotubes and graphene, which have the advantages of low density, good mechanical properties, excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, and high stability. “Carbonene fibers” mainly refers to high-performance fiber-like macroscopic assemblies composed of carbonene materials, and includes carbon nanotube fibers, graphene fibers, and graphene/carbon nanotube composite fibers. Carbonene fibers can effectively transfer the excellent performance of carbonene materials at the micro scale to the macro scale, showing high conductivity, strength, flexibility, stability, and ease of manufacture, making them widely used in research on advanced energy devices. In recent years, researchers have developed a variety of carbonene fiber-based energy devices. This paper reviews recent progress in the application of carbonene fibers in energy devices, including energy conversion and energy storage devices such as solar cells, moisture actuators and moisture power generators, thermoelectric generators, supercapacitors, and electrochemical cells. The preparation methods and wearable applications of carbonene fiber-based energy devices are emphasized. Discussion of the development prospects and challenges of energy storage/conversion devices based on carbonene fibers is included, and it is expected that this will provide valuable ideas for the future development of high-performance fiber-based wearable energy devices.