New Flexible Material Paves Way for Self-Powered Wearable Sensors

Clothing that can monitor a person’s health in real time could transform wearable technology. Current sensors often rely on external power sources, limiting flexibility, comfort, and scalability. A new nanofiber material that generates electricity from motion offers a way to integrate sensors directly into garments, enabling continuous, self-powered health monitoring without bulky batteries or rigid components.

The new material has been developed by researchers at Penn State (University Park, PA, USA) using an optimized electrospinning process that draws out fibers with electric force. The approach improves the internal structure of poly (vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE), a lightweight, flexible polymer with strong piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. These qualities allow the material to generate electrical charges from mechanical stress and temperature changes, making it ideal for energy-harvesting electronics.

Electrospinning stretches a polymer solution into extremely thin fibers, with molecular packing during the brief drying process determining performance. By adjusting polymer concentration and molecular weight, the team achieved higher crystallinity and polar phase content, aligning molecular charges for greater energy generation. Surprisingly, using low molecular weight polymers at unusually high concentrations produced the best structural results.

The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Physics, show that the improved fiber structure boosts performance without high-voltage treatment or complex post-processing. The resulting material is low-cost, scalable, and suitable for applications beyond wearables. It was initially developed for charged face mask filters capable of trapping pathogens but is equally suited for sensors and energy harvesters.

Potential applications include incorporating the material into clothing, bandages, and wide-area sheets for large-scale energy-harvesting systems. Future work may involve densifying the porous sheets through heat and pressure to increase sensitivity and output. The team sees industrial partnerships as key to advancing the material into commercial devices.

"If you wear it like clothing, it’s much better. You could even incorporate sensors into bandages," said Professor Qiming Zhang from Penn State.

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