Novel electrically-conductive porous PDMS/carbon nanofibre composites for deformable strain-sensors and conductors
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Highly flexible and deformable electrically conductive materials are vital for the emerging field of wearable electronics. To address the challenge of flexible materials with a relatively high electrical conductivity and a high elastic limit, we report a new and facile method to prepare porous polydimethylsiloxane/carbon nanofiber composites (denoted by p-PDMS/CNF). This method involves using sugar particles coated with carbon nanofibers (CNFs) as the templates. The resulting three-dimensional porous nanocomposites, with the CNFs embedded in the PDMS pore walls, exhibit a greatly increased failure strain (up to ∼94%) compared to that of the solid, neat PDMS (∼48%). The piezoresistive response observed under cyclic tension indicates that the unique microstructure provides the new nanocomposites with excellent durability. The electrical conductivity and the gauge factor of this new nanocomposite can be tuned by changing the content of the CNFs. The electrical conductivity increases, while the gauge factor decreases, upon increasing the content of CNFs. The gauge factor of the newly developed sensors can be adjusted from approximately 1.0 to 6.5, and the nanocomposites show stable piezoresistive performance with fast response time and good linearity in ln(R/R0) versus ln(L/L0) up to ∼70% strain. The tunable sensitivity and conductivity endow these highly stretchable nanocomposites with considerable potential for use as flexible strain sensors for monitoring the movement of human joints (where a relatively high gauge factor is needed) and also as flexible conductors for wearable electronics (where a relatively low gauge factor is required).
Date Issued
2017-04-11
Date Acceptance
2017-04-11
Citation
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2017, 9 (16), pp.14206-14215
ISSN
1944-8244
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
14206
End Page
14215
Journal / Book Title
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Volume
9
Issue
16
Copyright Statement
© 2017 American Chemical Society
Identifier
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.7b00847
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Materials Science
porous nanocomposites
stretchable
strain sensor
conductor
piezoresistivity
carbon nanofibers
polydimethylsiloxane
GRAPHENE FOAM COMPOSITE
EPOXY NANOCOMPOSITES
POLYMER NANOCOMPOSITES
ADJUSTABLE SENSITIVITY
CARBON NANOFIBERS
POLY(DIMETHYLSILOXANE)
PRESSURE
NETWORK
SKIN
MICROSTRUCTURE
carbon nanofibers
conductor
piezoresistivity
polydimethylsiloxane
porous nanocomposites
strain sensor
stretchable
03 Chemical Sciences
09 Engineering
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2017-04-17