Electromechanical properties of polyamide/lycra fabric treated with PEDOT:PSS
Paper in proceeding, 2017

One of the challenges in smart textiles is to develop suitable multifunctional materials that can address simultaneously several characteristics such as durability, stretchability, lightweight, and conductivity. Conductive polymers which showed success in different technological fields like polymer solar cells and light emitting diodes are promising in many smart textile applications. In this work, we treated a common polyamide/lycra knitted fabric with PEDOT:PSS for stretchable e-textiles. PEDOT:PSS, with DMSO as a conductivity enhancer and different ratios of water-based polyurethane dispersions as a binder, was applied to the fabric with simple immersion and coating applications. The effect of different application methods and binder ratio on the surface resistance of the fabric was monitored with four point probe electrical surface resistance measurement systems. Samples prepared by immersion technique are more uniform and have higher conductivity than those prepared by a coating technique. SEM images showed that PEDOT:PSS is incorporated into the structure in the immersion method while in the coating it is majorly present on the surface of the fabric. The tensile measurement showed that the acidic PEDOT:PSS and polyurethane dispersion coating has no adverse effect on the tensile strength of the fabric. The coated samples can be stretched up to 700% while still reasonably conductive. The resistance increases only by a small amount when samples were stretched cyclically by stretching 100%. Generally, samples prepared by the immersion method maintained better conductivity while stretching than those by a coating method. The washing fastness of the samples was also assessed.

Polyamide/lycra

Immersion

Coating

PEDOT:PSS

Stretchable conductive fabric

Author

M. G. Tadesse

Soochow University

Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iaşi

University of Borås

Desalegn Alemu Mengistie

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

C. Loghin

Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iaşi

Y. Chen

Soochow University

L. Wang

Soochow University

D. Catalin

Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iaşi

Christian Müller

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

V. A. Nierstrasz

University of Borås

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

17578981 (ISSN) 1757899X (eISSN)

Vol. 254 7 072025

Subject Categories

Materials Engineering

DOI

10.1088/1757-899X/254/7/072025

More information

Latest update

3/8/2018 9