The research team, led by Binghamton University Electrical and Computer Science Assistant Professor Seokheun Choi, created an entirely textile-based bio-battery that can produce maximum power similar to that produced by his previous paper-based microbial fuel cells. Additionally, these textile-based bio-batteries exhibited stable electricity-generating capability when tested under repeated stretching and twisting cycles. 

Choi said that this stretchable, twistable power device could establish a standardized platform for textile-based bio-batteries and will be potentially integrated into wearable electronics in the future.

“There is a clear and pressing need for flexible and stretchable electronics that can be easily integrated with a wide range of surroundings to collect real-time information,” said Choi. “Those electronics must perform reliably even while intimately used on substrates with complex and curvilinear shapes, like moving body parts or organs. We considered a flexible, stretchable, miniaturized bio-battery as a truly useful energy technology because of their sustainable, renewable and eco-friendly capabilities.”

Compared to traditional batteries and other enzymatic fuel cells, microbial fuel cells can be the most suitable power source for wearable electronics because the whole microbial cells as a biocatalyst provide stable enzymatic reactions and a long lifetime, said Choi. Sweat generated from the human body can be a potential fuel to support bacterial viability, providing the long-term operation of the microbial fuel cells.

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“If we consider that humans possess more bacterial cells than human cells in their bodies, the direct use of bacterial cells as a power resource interdependently with the human body is conceivable for wearable electronics,” said Choi.