Battery woven into textiles

摘要

A rechargeable battery has been built into clothing and watch straps and performs as well as inflexible batteries do, even when folded and unfolded repeatedly. Key to the battery is a flexible current collector - the metal that helps to transfer electrons between battery electrodes and an external circuit. Jang Wook Choi and his colleagues at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon made their current collector by coating fibres of a woven polyester varn with nickel. They then attached conventional lithium-ion electrode materials using a strong, flexible polyurethane binder.