Bioinspired Wearable Thermoelectric Device Constructed with Soft-Rigid Assembly for Personal Thermal Management

The development of high-performance thermoelectric devices (TEDs) with personal thermoregulation is crucial for the advancement of next-generation wearable technologies. Most efforts focus on optimizing mechanical flexibility in fully encapsulated devices, but parasitic heat loss induced by the layer-packed polymer matrices with high thermal impedance typically leads to degradation in sensing and bidirectional conversion capabilities. Here, a bioinspired architectural strategy is proposed for this problem that demonstrates the feasibility of single-sided assembly based on a soft-rigid "skin-spine" configuration to improve heat utilization efficiency. With active TE units connected via serpentine electrodes, skin-spine-structured wearable thermoelectric devices (SSSW-TEDs) are successfully fabricated enabling temperature sensing and bidirectional heat-to-electricity conversion under mild forced convection. This contributes to significant enhancements in power delivery (by 300%) and cost-benefit analysis (by 100%) through efficient air convection heat dissipation. Moreover, SSSW-TED enables personal thermal regulation by harnessing body heat, cooling the skin, and perceiving behaviors such as touching and blowing. This study not only provides novel insights for high-performance TEDs but also lays the foundation for the widespread implementation of skin thermoregulation. A "skin-spine" concept is proposed to design mechanically stable wearable thermoelectric devices based on soft-rigid assemblies for personal thermal management. Experimentally, this work demonstrates the capabilities of temperature sensing and bidirectional heat-to-electricity conversion, highlighting the enhancement in power delivery (by 300%) and cost-benefit analysis (by 100%) under mild forced conversion. image