TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly Durable Nanofiber-Reinforced Elastic Conductors for Skin-Tight Electronic Textiles
AU - Jin, Hanbit
AU - Nayeem, Md Osman Goni
AU - Lee, Sunghoon
AU - Matsuhisa, Naoji
AU - Inoue, Daishi
AU - Yokota, Tomoyuki
AU - Hashizume, Daisuke
AU - Someya, Takao
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2019/7/23
Y1 - 2019/7/23
N2 - Soft and stretchable electrodes are essential components for skin-tight wearable devices, which can provide comfortable, unobtrusive, and accurate physiological monitoring and physical sensing for applications such as healthcare, medical treatment, and human-machine interfaces. Metal-elastomer nanocomposites are a promising approach, enabling high conductivity and stretchability derived from metallic conduction and percolation networks of metal nano/micro fillers. However, their practical application is still limited by their inferior cyclic stability and long-term durability. Here, we report on a highly durable nanofiber-reinforced metal-elastomer composite consisting of (i) metal fillers, (ii) an elastomeric binder matrix, and (iii) electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride nanofibers for enhancing both cyclic stability and conductivity. Embedded polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers enhance the toughness and suppress the crack growth by providing a fiber reinforcing effect. Furthermore, the conductivity of nanofiber-reinforced elastic conductor is four times greater than the pristine material because the silver-rich layer is self-assembled on the top surface by a filtering effect. As a result, a stretchable electrode made from nanofiber-reinforced elastic conductors and wrinkled structures has both excellent cyclic durability and high conductivity and is stretchable up to 800%. The cyclic degradation (ΔR/R0) remains at 0.56 after 5000 stretching cycles (50% strain), whereas initial conductivity and sheet resistance are 9903 S cm-1 and 0.047 ω sq-1, respectively. By utilizing a highly conductive and durable elastic conductor as sensor electrodes and wirings, a skin-tight multimodal physiological sensing suit is demonstrated. Continuous long-term monitoring of electrocardiogram, electromyogram, and motions during weight-lifting exercises are successfully demonstrated without significant degradation of signal quality.
AB - Soft and stretchable electrodes are essential components for skin-tight wearable devices, which can provide comfortable, unobtrusive, and accurate physiological monitoring and physical sensing for applications such as healthcare, medical treatment, and human-machine interfaces. Metal-elastomer nanocomposites are a promising approach, enabling high conductivity and stretchability derived from metallic conduction and percolation networks of metal nano/micro fillers. However, their practical application is still limited by their inferior cyclic stability and long-term durability. Here, we report on a highly durable nanofiber-reinforced metal-elastomer composite consisting of (i) metal fillers, (ii) an elastomeric binder matrix, and (iii) electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride nanofibers for enhancing both cyclic stability and conductivity. Embedded polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers enhance the toughness and suppress the crack growth by providing a fiber reinforcing effect. Furthermore, the conductivity of nanofiber-reinforced elastic conductor is four times greater than the pristine material because the silver-rich layer is self-assembled on the top surface by a filtering effect. As a result, a stretchable electrode made from nanofiber-reinforced elastic conductors and wrinkled structures has both excellent cyclic durability and high conductivity and is stretchable up to 800%. The cyclic degradation (ΔR/R0) remains at 0.56 after 5000 stretching cycles (50% strain), whereas initial conductivity and sheet resistance are 9903 S cm-1 and 0.047 ω sq-1, respectively. By utilizing a highly conductive and durable elastic conductor as sensor electrodes and wirings, a skin-tight multimodal physiological sensing suit is demonstrated. Continuous long-term monitoring of electrocardiogram, electromyogram, and motions during weight-lifting exercises are successfully demonstrated without significant degradation of signal quality.
KW - electrospun nanofibers
KW - fiber-reinforced composite
KW - strain sensor
KW - stretchable electrode
KW - wearable e-textiles
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U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.9b02297
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.9b02297
M3 - Article
C2 - 31244040
AN - SCOPUS:85068162762
VL - 13
SP - 7905
EP - 7912
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
SN - 1936-0851
IS - 7
ER -