Liquid Metal Filled Fibers for Next Generation E-textiles
Abstract
Gallium-based liquid metals have remarkable properties: melting points below room temperature, water-like viscosity, low-toxicity (unlike Hg), and effectively zero vapor pressure (they don’t evaporate). They also have, by far, the largest interfacial tension of any liquid at room temperature. Yet, these liquid metals can be patterned into non-spherical shapes (cones, wires, etc) due to a thin, oxide skin that forms rapidly on its surface. We have harnessed this oxide to pattern and manipulate metal into shapes—such as wires and particles—that are useful for applications that call for soft and deformable metallic features, such as wearables. It is possible to pattern the metal in a number of ways, including injection into microchannels or by direct-write 3D printing at room temperature, to form ultra-stretchable wires, deformable antennas, and microelectrodes. In addition, recently we have shown that liquid metals can be used in textiles that are highly conductive, breathable, and most interestingly, can “self-heal” autonomously when cut. Furthermore, we have recently demonstrated the construction of energy harvesting devices by using electrical-double-layer capacitors with liquid metal electrodes. These variable surface area capacitors can generate power from multiple modes of motion including stretching, compression, bending, and/or twisting. The simple construction of liquid metal encapsulated in hydrogel allows the harvester device to be versatile in design, making it suitable fabric-type wearable energy harvesting applications.
Biography
Jeong Yong (David) Kim received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley (2012) and a PhD from North Carolina State University (2023) under the guidance of Professor Matthew Bryant. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Professor Michael Dickey in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. His research interests are in soft and stretchable robotics (fluidic artificial muscles, polymers, liquid metals).