A resistive ink based all-printed fabric heater integrated wearable thermotherapy device

Abstract

Owing to the current trends in the miniaturization of electronics, flexible and wearable gadgets are in great demand in various applications including therapeutic purposes. Fabric or textile-based devices are more preferred, as it blends with the outfit more than any other additional contraptions. Herein, an all-printed flexible fabric-based heater is developed. A silver-carbon composite ink is prepared to print on a polyester substrate in a meander configuration. The facile and low-cost heater fabricated via screen printing technology simply achieves a steady state temperature around 50 °C under 55 mW/cm2 of applied electric power. Additionally, it exhibited a highly stable electro-thermal performance and uniform distribution of temperature over the whole area of the printed heater. The printed fabric heater is integrated into a thermotherapy wrist gadget for the purpose of superficial heat therapy. The ease in tunability of the temperature, conformity of the device to the skin, and the simplicity in fabrication enable the printed fabric heater integrated wearable band to be an excellent candidate for household thermotherapy applications.