Inspiration from Daily Goods: A Low-Cost, Facilely Fabricated, and Environment-Friendly Strain Sensor Based on Common Carbon Ink and Elastic Core-Spun Yarn

Abstract

Cost and fabrication technique, as two important factors affecting the development and practical applications of electronic devices, have attracted extensive attention of researchers. In order to overcome the shortcomings of high-cost raw materials and complex fabrication process, in the present work, a low-cost (the cost of per strain sensor is less than one cent ($0.01)) and environmentfriendly strain sensor based on common daily goods of carbon ink and elastic core-spun yarn is fabricated by a facile solution processing method. The results show that the as-fabricated strain sensor possesses acceptable sensitivity (a gauge factor of 6.1 under the strain range of 0.5−20%) and rapid response and recovery speed (response/recovery times under a strain of 10%: 110/80 ms). Moreover, the facile solution processing method and tailorable length of the elastic core-spun yarn allow it to be fabricated into strain sensors with different specifications for meeting the needs of various application situations. Based on its many advantages, the strain sensor is successfully used for monitoring multiple human motions. This facile approach can be used for developing low-cost strain sensors and also provides inspiration for developing new applications of the daily goods such as carbon ink in electronic field.

Facilely constructed two-sided microstructure interfaces between electrodes and cellulose paper active layer: eco-friendly, low-cost and high-performance piezoresistive sensor

“…Various conductive active materials, such as poly (3,4- Cheng et al 2020), have been used for fabricating piezoresistive sensors. Although these materials have many unique merits for piezoresistive sensors, there are still some disadvantages, such as the inconclusive toxicity of CNTs, the relatively high cost, and the complex preparation process (Duan et al 2019a; Wang et al 2019). Even though the CB has a relatively low cost, it still needs high cost and a series of processing procedures to obtain uniform carbon black solution (colloid) that can be used to fabricate piezoresistive sensors (Han et al 2019;Liu et al 2019).…”

“…Carbon ink, as a material for writing and painting, has the advantages of good stability, low price (about 0.5 USD for 50 mL) and environmental protection. In our previous work, we have demonstrated that the conductive property of the carbon ink can be used to fabricate low-cost tensile strain sensor (Duan et al 2019a). Therefore, we speculate that the daily carbon ink has the potential to fabricate low-cost and eco-friendly piezoresistive sensors.…”

Self-powered ultrasensitive and highly stretchable temperature–strain sensing composite yarns

“…After the fourth cycle, the morphology becomes invariant and the resistance change with strain becomes stable and reversible (Fig. S5A, ESI † [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] ). The obtained CPY shows an unprecedented combination of properties, including an outstanding sensitivity to deformation together with a very wide strain sensing window.…”

Piezotronic effect in AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterojunction nanowires used as a flexible strain sensor

“…3 that, regardless of the strain, the gauge factor shows an increasing trend at a bias voltage of 1.9 V. At a strain of −1.78% (compressive strain) or 1.78% (tensile strain), the gauge factor is as high as 30, which enables the detection of a very small deformation. Compared with previous works [ 27 – 29 ], the AlGaN/AlN/GaN NW-based strain sensor has a higher sensitivity. The compressive strain and the tensile strain are converted to a normal strain ε by using the following formula [ 25 – 26 ]:…”