The rapid advancement of wearable electronics has driven significant interest in the development of wearable energy storage technologies. Among them, aqueous zinc ion batteries (ZIBs) have gained considerable attention as promising candidates for portable and wearable applications. In particular, aqueous fiber-shaped ZIBs offer distinctive advantages, such as miniaturization, flexibility, and wearability, making them especially suitable for powering next-generation wearable devices. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in aqueous fiber-shaped ZIBs, focusing on the fabrication of fiber-based electrodes and various battery configurations. In addition, we highlight the evolution of fiber-shaped ZIBs from single-function to multi-function systems, exploring their potential for diverse applications. The review also addresses the key challenges in this field and discusses future research directions to drive the further development of aqueous fiber-shaped ZIBs.

To enhance the bonding strength between the active material and the core yarn current collector through nano-entanglement, bacterial cellulose/carbon nanotube (BC/CNT) nanofiber yarns were developed using in situ cultivation and wet twisting. This method utilizes the large specific surface area and abundant active functional groups of BC-based nanofibers. Subsequently, V₂O₅/BC/CNT composite yarn electrodes were fabricated, exhibiting a core-sheath structure with excellent conformal characteristics. The influence of ultrasound duration on the conductivity and electrochromic performance of composite yarns was investigated. The initial discharge-specific capacity was recorded as 105.3 mAh/g, with a capacity retention rate of 60.2% after 100 cycles. The composite yarn exhibited 100 reversible transitions between yellow and blue, with reduction and oxidation response times of 2.35 s and 3.3 s, respectively. The modulation amplitude at 532 nm during the initial cycle was 20.31%, and after 100 cycles, the modulation amplitude retention rate remained at 68%.

Modulating trained immunity while simultaneously initiating regenerative cues presents a significant challenge in large bone defect therapy. This study introduces a cell-free approach utilizing a 3D microenvironment-responsive scaffold to orchestrate immune reprogramming. To mitigate maladaptive trained immunity and activate regenerative signaling, a composite fibrous scaffold is functionalized with immune-engineered exosomes derived from inflammation-primed mesenchymal stem cells (PSS-iEXO) in a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive manner. The PSS-iEXO scaffolds incorporate boronic ester linkages as ROS-sensitive moieties, enabling rapid, dynamic, and “on-demand” exosome release in response to elevated ROS levels characteristic of the early inflammatory phase post-injury, thereby initiating regeneration. In vitro and in vivo analyses reveal that these scaffolds precisely target and modulate maladaptive trained immunity, reprogramming immune responses by shifting macrophage polarization from a hyperactivated type I phenotype to a balanced state while promoting CD4⁺ regulatory T cell activation—both critical for coupling angiogenesis and osteogenesis. Mechanistic insights highlight the role of engineered exosomes in enhancing mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation in macrophages, establishing a cell-free immune-regenerative niche for large bone defect therapy.

Schematic diagram of the fabrication, function, and mechanism of ROS-responsive 3D electrospun nanofiber scaffolds loaded with immunoengineered exosomes (PSS-iEXO) for promoting large bone repair.

Biodegradable and biocompatible organic polymers play a pivotal role in designing the next generation of wearable smart electronics, reducing electronic waste and carbon emissions while promoting a toxin-free environment. Herein, an electrospun fibrous polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) organic mat-based, energy-autonomous, skin-adaptable temperature sensor is developed, eliminating the need for additional storage or circuit components. The electrospun PHB mat exhibits an enhanced β-crystalline phase with a β/α phase ratio of 3.96 using 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoro-2-propanol as a solvent. Solvent and film processing techniques were tailored to obtain high-quality PHB films with the desired thickness, flexibility, and phase conversion. The PHB mat-based temperature sensor (PHB–TS) exhibits a negative temperature coefficient of resistance, with a sensitivity of − 2.94%/°C and a thermistor constant of 4676 K, outperforming pure metals and carbon-based sensors. A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) based on the enhanced β-phase PHB mat was fabricated, delivering an output of 156 V, 0.43 µA, and a power density of 1.71 mW/m². The energy-autonomous PHB–TS was attached to the index finger to monitor temperature changes upon contact with hot and cold surfaces, demonstrating good reliability and endurance.

Passive cooling strategy with zero-energy consumption is effective in preventing people from heat stress. However, most of the existing radiative cooling textiles are fabricated with non-degradable hydrophobic synthetic polymers and lack the functions of sweat management. Herein, a hierarchically designed dual Janus nanofibrous textile with superior thermal-wet management capability is proposed by targeted selection of spinning solvents with different properties during electrospinning. The embedded Al₂O₃ nanoparticles and BN nanosheets in silk fibroin nanofibers endow the textile with high solar reflectivity (97.12%) and infrared emissivity (98.69%), alongside improved in-plane and through-plane thermal conductivity (1.593 and 0.1187 W·K⁻¹·m⁻¹, respectively). Benefiting from the asymmetric characteristics of the two sides in terms of fiber diameter and wettability, the nanofibrous textile exhibits unparalleled water transport index (${\text{R}}$=1028.93%) and exceptional water vapor transmission rate (141.34 g·m⁻²·h⁻¹). The textile integrates radiative cooling, rapid heat conduction, and unidirectional sweat evaporation, achieving a cooling effect exceeding 9 °C under direct sunlight when worn. Moreover, the Janus textile has good biocompatibility, satisfactory wearability and air breathability, ensuring its comfort in wearable applications. Computer simulations complement experimental results, providing insights into the deep-seated mechanisms of nanofiber formation, Mie scattering, and water transport. This innovative design offers promising prospects for the development of next-generation passive-cooling textiles.

Highlights

Mechanical fiber sensors that can be seamlessly integrated into traditional fabrics have significant potential for imperceptible sleep monitoring. Wet-spinning techniques are an effective method for fabricating fiber sensors. However, the sensors produced by this process have a single, homogeneous linear structure, which limits their high sensitivity and linearity to low-pressure ranges and presents challenges for stability. To address this issue, we propose an improved wet-spinning process for the large-scale production of a capacitive sensor that features both multilevel structure of varying heights and a core-sheath configuration (with commercial conductive yarn as the core and TPU as the sheath).Thanks to its multilevel structure, a multilevel structure fabric pressure sensing belt (MSFPSB) woven from this fiber sensor exhibits excellent linearity (R² = 0.998) and sensitivity (0.077 kPa⁻¹) over a pressure range of 3.3–30 kPa. Furthermore, the commercial conductive core ensures the sensor's stability after 4000 compression cycles. Additionally, we have developed a battery-free, wireless, stick-on-and-use-immediately data acquisition tag based on near-field communication (NFC). The tag works with a reader placed 5 cm away to imperceptibly monitor breathing, ballistocardiogram (BCG), and body motion signals during both work and sleep. This approach enhances the comfort of sleep monitoring and helps detect potential sleep disorders.

Traditional antibiotic-based therapies for treating infectious wounds often face challenges in balancing long-term biosafety, promoting wound healing, and effectively eradicating bacteria. Herein, we introduce an innovative "top-down" approach to fabricating one-dimensional (1D) pristine silk nanofibers (SNFs) by the gradual exfoliation of silk fibers, preserving their inherent semi-crystalline structure. These SNFs functioned as a robust template for the in situ growth of two-dimensional (2D) plum blossom-like bismuth nanosheets (BiNS), whose anisotropic morphology enhances bactericidal contact efficiency. The resulting BiNS-equipped SNFs (SNF@Bi) are assembled into membranes (SNFM@Bi) via vacuum filtration, showing superior biocompatibility, photothermal efficiency, and photodynamic activity. Furthermore, the acidic wound microenvironment or near-infrared (NIR) irradiation triggered the release of Bi³⁺, exhibiting nanoenzyme-mediated catalytic activity. This multimodal mechanism allows SNFM@Bi to eliminate over 99% of Staphylococcus aureus and 100% of Escherichia coli by disrupting biofilms, inducing lysis, and causing oxidative damage. In vivo evaluations demonstrated significant bacteria clearance, accelerated angiogenesis, and enhanced collagen deposition, contributing to rapid wound healing without systemic toxicity. Notably, SNFM@Bi detaches spontaneously after healing, avoiding chronic nanomaterial retention risks. This multifunctional antimicrobial platform offers a controllable, effective, and biocompatible therapeutic strategy for antimicrobial dressing design, with potential applications in biomedicine, environmental protection, and public health.

Smart firefighting clothing is in urgent need of rigorous fire resistance. Here, a novel 2D nanomaterial, silver nanoparticle@polydopamine@M(OH)(OCH₃) (M=Co, Ni) (AgNP@PDA@M(OH)(OCH₃)), was utilized to construct self-assembled nano-coated aramid fiber (NCANF). Through phase interface catalysis and high-temperature reduction, NCANF forms a distinctive “metal–carbon–air” honeycomb-like buffer that enables NCANF to withstand the butane flame (1300 °C) for at least 60 s, exceeding the performance of firefighting uniform (FU, Nomex) in service. In this process, the back temperature of NCANF decreased by more than 50% compared to FU, with a maximum difference of 236.1 °C. NCANF offers a rapid fire alarm response under 3 s with a maximum resistance change rate of 15%, and supports the graded indication using arithmetic amplifier circuit. NCANF maintained a maximum resistance change rate of approximately 63% during 50 repeated bends of the manipulator joint. Leveraging the relationship between the joint bending angle and resistance change rate, an “attitude code” system can be established as the initial parameter matrix of a neural network and can enable the recognition of the firefighters’ body language. NCANF well solves the problem of current smart firefighting clothing that lacks rigorous fireproofing and is promising to establish a linked rescue mode based on real-time on-site information collection.

Photo/electro-thermal evaporation is a promising tactic for alleviating the scarcity of fresh water, but its practical application still faces many challenges such as weak photoabsorption, high vaporization enthalpy and serious water-electrolysis during photo-thermal/electrothermal evaporation. To solve these problems, inspired by black rose petal and electric heater, we report a biomimetic design of fabric for achieving efficient photothermal/electrothermal desalination. The photo/electrothermal fabric is fabricated by decorating super-hydrophilic MnO₂ nanoplates as shell on hydrophobic carbon fiber (CF) as core via an electro-deposition method. MnO₂ nanoplate decoration as a stone confers three fascinating features (birds): (I) the hydrophilic nature of MnO₂ contributes to the fabric’s superhydrophilicity and decreased evaporation enthalpy (2032 kJ kg⁻¹) in comparison with that (2410 kJ kg⁻¹) of pure water; (II) nanoplate structure confers the light-trapping effect and thus the improved photoabsorption efficiency of 95.1%; (III) CF-core/MnO₂-shell structure can effectively suppress electrolysis of water and lead to good electrothermal conversion property. As a result, CF/MnO₂ fabric-based hanging evaporator shows the high photo-thermal evaporation rate of 2.3 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ at 1 sun (1 kW m⁻²) and electrothermal evaporation rate of 5.3 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ at 3 V. Importantly, by the combined effects of 1 sun and 3 V, CF/MnO₂ fabric achieves a striking synergetic evaporation rate of 8.5 kg m⁻² h⁻¹, exceeding the sum (7.5 kg m⁻² h⁻¹) of the individual photo-thermal and electro-thermal evaporation rates. The present high synergetic evaporation performance benefits from efficient photo/electrothermal conversion of the fabric and sufficient water-supplementation at the fiber-water interface resulting from thermosiphon effect. Thus, this study offers a novel possibility in the rational design of photo-electrothermal materials for efficient evaporation of seawater.

Stimuli-responsive polymers offer unprecedented control over drug release in implantable delivery systems. Shape memory polymer fibers (SMPFs), with their large specific surface area and programmable properties, present promising alternatives for triggerable drug delivery. However, the existing SMPFs face limitations in resolution, architecture, scalability, and functionality. We introduce thermal drawing as a materials and processing platform to fabricate microstructured, multimaterial SMPFs that are tens of meters long, with high resolution (10 μm) and extreme aspect ratios (> 10⁵). These novel fibers achieve highly controlled, sequential drug release over tailored time periods of 6 months. Post thermal drawing photothermal coatings enable accelerated, spatially precise drug release within 4 months and facilitate light-triggered, untethered shape recovery. The fibers’ fast self-tightening capability within 40 s shows their potential as smart sutures for minimally invasive procedures that deliver drugs simultaneously. In addition, the advanced multimaterial platform facilitates the integration of optical and metallic elements within SMP systems, allowing highly integrated fibers with shape memory attributes and unprecedented functionalities. This versatile technology opens new avenues for diverse biomedical applications, including implantable drug delivery systems, smart sutures, wound dressings, stents, and functional textiles. It represents a significant advancement in precise spatio-temporal control of drug delivery and adaptive medical devices.

Mimicking human skin mechanoreceptors grouped by various thresholds creates an efficient system to detect interfacial stress between skin and environment, enabling precise human perception. Specifically, the detected signals are transmitted in the form of spikes in the neuronal network via synapses. However, current efforts replicating this mechanism for health-monitoring struggle with limitations in flexibility, durability, and performance, particularly in terms of low sensitivity and narrow detection range. This study develops novel soft mechanoreceptors with tunable pressure thresholds from 1.94 kPa to 15 MPa. The 0.455-mm-thin mechanoreceptor achieves an impressive on–off ratio of over eight orders of magnitude, up to 40,000 repeated compression cycles and after 20 wash cycles. In addition, the helical array reduces the complexity and port count, requiring only two output channels, and a differential simplification algorithm enables two-dimensional spatial mapping of pressure. This array shows stable performance across temperatures ranging from − 40 to 50 °C and underwater at depths of 1 m. This technology shows significant potential for wearable healthcare applications, including sensor stimulation for children and the elderly, and fall detection for Parkinson’s patients, thereby enhancing the functionality and reliability of wearable monitoring systems.

Aerogel fibers with high porosity, low thermal conductivity and flexibility have shown great potential for applications in personal thermal management. However, the porous structure of aerogel fibers significantly compromises their mechanical properties like tensile strength. Here, we propose a high-strength polyimide aerogel fiber with porous-cortex-dense-core structure prepared via a coaxial wet-spinning based on hierarchical phase separation. Porous-cortex is formed due to fast phase separation rate induced by weak electrostatic and hydrogen-bonding interactions between the fluorinated polyimide and the ethanol. In contrast, the poly(amic acid) with high polarity index in the core-layer exhibits a slow phase separation rate, allowing the fibers to produce a dense nanoporous structure. With the dense core undertaking stress and porous cortex hindering heat transfer, the obtained aerogel fiber exhibits a higher tensile strength of up to 55.2 MPa compared to most reported aerogel fibers (0.15 –30 MPa) and a low thermal conductivity of 37.2 mW m⁻¹ K⁻¹. This work offers a new way to prepare strong aerogel fibers and broadens their applications in thermal protection and infrared stealth.

Flexible wearable electronics have garnered substantial attention as promising alternatives to traditional rigid metallic conductors, particularly for personal health monitoring and bioinspired skin applications. However, these technologies face persistent challenges, including low sensitivity, limited mechanical strength, and difficulty in capturing weak signals. To address these issues, this study developed a hierarchical sandwich-structured piezoresistive foam sensor using phase inversion and NaCl sacrificial templating methods. The sensor exhibits an exceptional sensitivity of up to 83.4 kPa⁻¹ under an ultralow detection pressure of 2.43 Pa. By optimizing the foam porosity, its mechanical performance was significantly enhanced, reaching a tensile fracture elongation of 257.3% at 73.42% porosity. The hierarchical sandwich structure provided mechanical buffering and layer-enhancement functionalities for dynamic responses, whereas the nanostructure further refined signal acquisition and interference resistance. Signal analysis using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) enables multiscale and multifrequency characterization of arterial resistance signals under varying applied pressures. These findings underscore the sensor’s ability to capture weak signals and analyze complex pulse dynamics. This advancement paves the way for the extensive application of multifunctional sensors in smart devices and health care. This method offers a robust scientific basis for further understanding and quantifying arterial pulse characteristics.

Achieving human skin-like sensitivity and wide-range pressure detection remains a significant challenge in the development of wearable pressure sensors. In this study, we engineered and fabricated a fibrous polyimide fiber (PIF)/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite aerogel with a gradient structure using a layer-by-layer freeze casting technique, aiming to overcome the limitations of traditional pressure sensors. Finite element analysis (FEA) reveals that this innovative gradient structure mimics the unique microstructure of human skin, enabling the sensor to detect a broad spectrum of pressure stimuli, ranging from subtle pressures as low as 10 Pa to intense pressures up to 1.58 MPa with exceptional sensitivity. Moreover, the sensor exhibits extraordinary pressure resolution across the entire pressure range, particularly at 1 MPa (0.001%). Additionally, the sensor demonstrates remarkable thermal stability, operating reliably across a wide temperature range from − 150 to 200 °C, making it suitable for extreme environments such as deep space exploration. When integrated with machine learning algorithms, the sensor shows great potential for real-time physiological monitoring, fitness tracking, and motion recognition. The proposed gradient fibrous pressure sensor, with its high sensitivity and resolution over a wide pressure range, paves the way for new opportunities in human–machine interaction.

Wicking textiles are known to be superior to conventional textiles in body sweat management. However, many existing wicking textiles suffer inadequate durability and perspiration performance after repeated abrasion and washing. Herein, an interfacial interlocking strategy was demonstrated to prepare a durable self-pumping textile with strong interfacial adhesion (up to 21.47 ± 1.73 N/cm) between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic layers. Unlike conventional transfer prints, the sequenced combination of powder-patterning and hot-pressing enables the in situ formation of the interfacial interlocking structures between the hydrophobic thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) layer with the cotton fabric. The durable self-pumping textiles exhibit excellent abrasion-proof performance and enduring liquid unidirectional transport compared with the commercial wicking textiles. Furthermore, they show a liquid unidirectional transport capacity of (1385 ± 155)%, much higher than the previously reported wicking textiles. This work provides valuable insights for developing future high-performance wicking textiles, emphasizing enhanced liquid transport efficiency, and durability in demanding conditions.