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Wearable luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) hold significant promise for integrating energy harvesting with flexible textiles. However, most currently reported LSCs are either rigid or liquid-filled, making it challenging to achieve flexible devices with high efficiency and mechanical robustness. Here, we introduced Ca²⁺-capped carbon dots (C-dots) as dual-functional agents, simultaneously crosslinking sodium alginate hydrogels and serving as luminophores, eliminating the need for additional dopants. The resulting hydrogels exhibited tunable mechanical strength (0.25 MPa at 50 % strain), high transparency (64 % visible transmittance), and good stability. As a proof-of-concept, we fabricated wearable LSCs by embedding the hydrogel into flattened polyvinyl chloride tubes and weaving them into textiles. Under natural sunlight illumination (50 mW/cm²), the as-fabricated flexible LSC achieved a power conversion efficiency (η PCE ) of 0.26 % and an optical efficiency (η opt ) of 2.60 % with 64 % average visible transmittance. Remarkably, the device retains 72 % of its initial optical efficiency after 24 h continuous ultraviolet illumination (468 mW/cm 2 ). This work demonstrates the first hydrogel-based LSCs for practical wearable energy harvesting.
Li et al. (Mon,) studied this question.