Stretchable Textile Rechargeable Zn Batteries Enabled by a Wax Dyeing Method

The development of smart electronic textiles faces one challenge that the power devices should be as comfortable, lightweight, and flexible as that of common fabrics. Herein, a stretchable textile-based rechargeable Zn microbattery fabricated through a method analogous to Chinese traditional Batik wax dyeing is reported. Conductive metal coatings (Ni and Cu) in arbitrary patterns are prepared on a variety of fabrics, either hydrophobic or hydrophilic. The resistance of a knitted conductive textile is fully recoverable and extremely stable even after 1000 cycles of stretching to 50% tensile strain, due to the absence of damage in the conformal metal coatings. An in-plane rechargeable alkaline Zn microbattery is then fabricated on the conductive textile using Zn as the anode and Ni-Co bimetallic oxyhydroxide as the cathode, achieving an areal capacity about 0.45 mAh cm(-2). Stable stretchability of the textile Zn microbattery is also demonstrated. The stretchable textile conductors and rechargeable Zn microbatteries suggest great potentials in stretchable electronics or electronic textiles.