Rechargeable electronic textile battery

We present a simple fabrication process that produces polymeric charge storage devices directly onto a textile surface. By using a coating of poly-(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulphonic acid) (PEDOT) as a solid electrolytic layer deposited between two woven silver coated polyamide yarns, we have created a simple polymeric textile battery. By studying the device’s surface morphology and chemical composition, we determined that in the presence of an electric field, silver ions from the anode yarn migrate to the cathode yarn through the PEDOT. Despite this migration, the device could be charged and discharged five times without suffering degradation in electrical performance.