Environmentally Stable, Highly Conductive, and Mechanically Robust Metallized Textiles

Abstract

Textile-based wearable electronics, integrating the functions of electronics into the daily textiles, offers a comfortable interaction between humans and electronic devices. Production of highly conductive and environmentally stable textiles is the precondition for the ultimate wearable electronic system. However, due to the complicated porous structure, it is still technically challenging to endow textiles with desirable conductivity and stability, especially in the case of stretchable fabrics. Herein, we report a facile but effective fabrication strategy combining the electroless deposition and electrodeposition techniques for the metallization of stretchable knitted fabrics. The electroless deposition process first introduces a thin metal layer and yields electrically conductive fabrics. The subsequent electrodeposited metals conformally coat on individual fibers of fabrics, which significantly improves the electrical conductivity, mechanical durability, and environmental stability of metallized textiles. Remarkably, the sheet resistance of metallized textiles reaches less than 0.02 Ω sq–1 and remains relatively stable under more than 400% tensile strain. More importantly, the metallized stretchable fabrics exhibit superior stability when monitored in varied environments for 30 days, further promoting their practical uses in wearable electronics. Finally, a wearable heater and a strain sensor are demonstrated to show potential applications of metallized textiles for personal healthcare and human motion monitoring.

Emerging washable textronics for imminent e-waste mitigation: strategies, reliability, and perspectives

“…A polymer-assisted ELD method was adopted in the design of metalized fabric to tackle the excessive rotation stress of the washing machine drum (1000 rpm). 253 The metalized fabric could maintain its low resistance even aer 100 min of continuous high-speed washing process. A highly washable EMI shielding cotton textile was designed through sequential Cu and superamphiphobic coatings.…”

Permeable Conductors for Wearable and On‐Skin Electronics

“…To date, coated conductive fabrics have been extensively developed and reported in the literature, such as CNT‐coated cotton fabrics, [ 52 ] graphene‐coated fabrics, [ 53 ] Ag NWs‐coated cotton fabrics, [ 54 ] conducting polymer‐coated textiles, [ 55 ] and Ag‐/Ni‐/Cu‐coated textiles. [ 56 ] As only a thin layer of conducting materials is applied to the fabrics, coating usually does not affect the breathability and flexibility/stretchability of the fabrics. Hsu et al [54b] demonstrated a personal thermal management system by applying metallic NWs‐coated woven fabric ( Figure a).…”

“…In addition, the moisture permeability of the original fabric was not sacrificed, which was only reduced by 2% for Ag NWs coating (Figure 4b). Lu et al [56a] combined the electroless deposition and electrodeposition techniques for the fabrication of stretchable knitted fabric conductors (Figure 4c). Such a solution‐based process could achieve the loading of the conducting layer around individual fibers, thereby retaining the fibrous structure and corresponding comfort of the original textiles (Figure 4d).…”

“…e) Application of metalized stretchable fabrics as the wearable heater. c–e) Reproduced with permission [56a] . Copyright 2021, American Chemical Society.…”

Metallisation of Textiles and Protection of Conductive Layers: An Overview of Application Techniques

“…Since textiles usually act as natural insulators, it is necessary for them to become conductive prior to electrodeposition. This is feasible by the creation of conductive layers (in a pre-treatment step) on a textile surface, using different metals, such as Ag [51,87], Cu, [88][89][90], Ni [91], Mxenes [92], Ni-Co selenide nanowires [93], NiMoO 4 /CoMoO 4 nanorods [94], LaMnO 3 /MnO nanoarrays, ZnO nanostructures deposited on an Ni-Cu-Ni conductive layer [95], and LiMn 2 O 4 [96], conductive polymers [97] or carbon-based materials [11,[22][23][24][25][26]. Schematic presentation of a typical electrochemical deposition process of a metallic layer onto PES fabric, using a three-electrode system, is shown in Figure 5a, where the deposition of Ni 3 Se 2 NPs is carried out on the conductive fabric (used as a working electrode), resulting in a metallic polyester layered fabric.…”