Flexible piezoelectric coatings on textiles for energy harvesting and autonomous sensing applications: a review

The digitization of a society has tremendously influenced the social, economic, and organizational activities of human beings. Internet of things (IoT) will be the next norm to ensure well-being, protection, and comfort of the human beings. Owing to the crisis in energy and consumption of fuel, the research in energy harvesters and autonomous sensors has been focused to develop self-powered wearable devices. The stand-alone energy devices are not suitable to fulfill the requirement of supplying power to the various wearable devices because of higher weight, large volume, frequent recharging, and replacement. The integration of wearable devices into textile materials has recently fostered the emergence of textile-based piezoelectric energy harvesters and sensors. A critical review has been presented on the current status of the textile-based piezosensors and energy harvesters, covering fundamental aspects like probable piezocoatings, fabrication strategies, material choices, working principles, theory behind piezoelectric energy harvesting devices and possible potential applications.