Closed-loop recycling of wearable electronic textiles

Abstract

Wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) are transforming personalized healthcare through innovative applications. However, integrating electronics into textiles for e-textile manufacturing exacerbates the rapidly growing issues of electronic waste (e-waste) and textile recycling due to the complicated recycling and disposal processes needed for mixed materials, including textile fibers, electronic materials, and components. Here, first closed-loop recycling for wearable e-textiles is reported by incorporating the thermal-pyrolysis of graphene-based e-textiles to convert them into graphene-like electrically conductive recycled powders. A scalable pad-dry coating technique is then used to reproduce graphene-based wearable e-textiles and demonstrate their potential healthcare applications as wearable electrodes for capturing electrocardiogram (ECG) signals and temperature sensors. Additionally, recycled graphene-based textile supercapacitor highlights their potential as sustainable energy storage devices, maintaining notable durability and retaining ≈94% capacitance after 1000 cycles with an areal capacitance of 4.92 mF cm⁻ 2. Such sustainable closed-loop recycling of e-textiles showcases the potential for their repurposing into multifunctional applications, promoting a circular approach that potentially prevents negative environmental impact and reduces landfill disposal.

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