Nanomaterial-based textile microfluidic fuel cells: Toward a sustainable and self-powered approach for wearable devices

Textile-based microfluidic fuel cells (TMFCs) have attracted attention as a potential source of energy for wearables, smart clothing, and health-monitoring devices due to their flexible nature, lightweight properties, and self-feeding operations. The combination of MFC design together with the use of textile materials such as cotton fibers, woven textiles, and carbon fiber textiles is possible in the fabrication of TMFCs, allowing for continuous energy generation without the need for additional external pumps. Nanomaterial-enhanced electrodes, which include carbon nanotubes, graphene, conductive polymers, and metal nanoparticles acting as catalysts, have led to a great improvement in terms of efficiency. Recently, power densities of around 24.75 mW cm − 2 in cotton thread fuel cells, up to 14.41 mW cm − 2 in flexible H 2 O 2 -based devices, and even theoretically predicted values of 34.6 mW cm − 2 , have been achieved. Moreover, developments in nanostructured textiles, conductive polymer composites, and multifunctional catalyst-integrated textiles have provided new dimensions to the TMFC design that can result in improved electrochemical performance and more diverse applications in future wearable energy technologies. This review examines the basic principles, textile materials, new advances in the field of nanomaterials, recent technological improvements, and current applications in wearables of TMFCs. Issues in the field currently faced by the TMFC community are analyzed, and future trends are discussed.