For the large amount of waste heat wasted in daily life and industrial production, we propose a new type of flexible thermoelectric generators (F-TEGs) which can be used as a large area bionic skin to achieve energy harvesting of thermal energy. With reference to biological structures such as pinecone, succulent, and feathers, we have designed and fabricated a biomimetic flexible TEG that can be applied in a wide temperature range which has the highest temperature energy harvesting capability currently. The laminated free structure of the bionic F-TEG dramatically increases the efficiency and density of energy harvesting. The F-TEGs (single TEG only 101.2 mg in weight), without an additional heat sink, demonstrates the highest output voltage density of 286.1 mV/cm² and the maximum power density is 66.5 mW/m² at a temperature difference of nearly 1000 °C. The flexible characteristics of F-TEGs make it possible to collect the diffused thermal energy by flexible attachment to the outer walls of high-temperature pipes and vessels of different diameters and shapes. This work shows a new design and application concept for flexible thermal energy collectors, which fills the gap of flexible energy harvesting in high-temperature environment.

Flexible temperature sensors have been extensively investigated due to their prospect of wide application in various flexible electronic products. However, most of the current flexible temperature sensors only work well in a narrow temperature range, with their application at high or low temperatures still being a big challenge. This work proposes a flexible thermocouple temperature sensor based on aerogel blanket substrate, the temperature-sensitive layer of which uses the screen-printing technology to prepare indium oxide and indium tin oxide. It has good temperature sensitivity, with the test sensitivity reaching 226.7 μV ℃⁻¹. Most importantly, it can work in a wide temperature range, from extremely low temperatures down to liquid nitrogen temperature to high temperatures up to 1200 ℃, which is difficult to be achieved by other existing flexible temperature sensors. This temperature sensor has huge application potential in biomedicine, aerospace and other fields.