Background

Wearable heaters are highly useful for various applications, including thermotherapy for wound care, surgery recovery, physical therapy support, sports injury treatment, and general body warming during cold weather.

Currently available wearable heaters only stretch in one dimension, not two. Thus, they struggle to conform to the human skin, especially around joints and moving appendages (hands, feet, etc). This is especially unfortunate considering that joints and moving appendages are some of the most commonly injured parts of the human body. Further, currently available wearable heaters generally do not breathe well, causing a buildup of sweat between the user’s skin and the wearable heater, making such use very unpleasant.

Thus, there is a great need for a wearable stretchable heater that can stretch in two dimensions and allow for breathability for the user.

Technology Overview

NC State researchers have developed a novel bi-axially stretchable wearable heater that has excellent breathing properties. This heater consists silver nanowires (AgNW) cut with a novel Kirigami inspired pattern. This novel cutting scheme allows the AgNW to both stretch in two dimensions and allows air flow to reach the user’s skin.

Further, the Kirigami inspired pattern allows for 50% stretching in both directions simultaneously and 100% stretching in a single axis. Such stretching ability is enough to allow this heater to be worn on any part of the human body, including joints and moving appendages.

This innovation is fully developed and ready to be licensed to a commercial partner.

Benefits

Wearable heater.
Stretchable in two dimensions.
Allows for wear-ability in mobile areas of the human body, such as joints and appendages.

Applications

A wearable heater for thermotherapy around mobile joints
A wearable heater for mobile appendages
A wearable stretchable heater for body warming in cold environments.

2D Stretchable Wearable Heaters