Issue 6, 2021

Recent advances in printed flexible heaters for portable and wearable thermal management

Abstract

Flexible resistive heaters (FRHs) with high heating performance, large-area thermal homogeneity, and excellent thermal stability are very desirable in modern life, owing to their tremendous potential for portable and wearable thermal management applications, such as body thermotherapy, on-demand drug delivery, and artificial intelligence. Printed electronic (PE) technologies, as emerging methods combining conventional printing techniques with solution-processable functional ink have been proposed to be promising strategies for the cost-effective, large-scale, and high-throughput fabrication of printed FRHs. This review summarizes recent progress in the main components of FRHs, including conductive materials and flexible or stretchable substrates, focusing on the formulation of conductive ink systems for making printed FRHs by a variety of PE technologies including screen printing, inkjet printing, roll-to-roll (R2R) printing and three-dimensional (3D) printing. Various challenges facing the commercialization of printed FRHs and improved methods for portable and wearable thermal management applications have been discussed in detail to overcome these problems.

Graphical abstract: Recent advances in printed flexible heaters for portable and wearable thermal management

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
07 12 2020
Accepted
03 2 2021
First published
04 2 2021

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 1634-1656

Recent advances in printed flexible heaters for portable and wearable thermal management

Q. Liu, B. Tian, J. Liang and W. Wu, Mater. Horiz., 2021, 8, 1634 DOI: 10.1039/D0MH01950J

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