Wearable Fiber-Based Supercapacitors Enabled by Additive-Free Aqueous MXene Inks for Self-Powering Healthcare Sensors

Wearable fiber-based electronics have found diverse applications including energy storage, healthcare or thermal management, etc. In particular, additive-free aqueous inks play significant roles in fabrication of wearable fiber-based devices, owning to their nontoxic nature and ease of manufacturing. Herein, wearable carbon fiber-based asymmetric supercapacitors (WASSC) are developed based on additive-free aqueous MXene inks, for self-powering healthcare sensors. The sediments of MXene without further modification are used as inks. Furthermore, combined with additive-free aqueous MXene/polyaniline (MP) inks, WASSC, with a wide voltage window and high capacitance is developed for practical energy supply. Impressively, WASSC has been successfully utilized to power wearable pressure sensors that could monitor motions and pulse signals. This wearable self-powered monitoring system on can accurately monitor the human motions, pronunciation, swallow or wrist pulse, without using the rigid batteries. This advantage realizes a great potential in simple and cost effective monitoring of human health and activities. Besides, self-powered system enables waste recycling of MXene and provides an effective approach for designing wearable and fiber-based self-powered sensors. Graphical abstract