Machine-Washable Conductive Silk Yarns with a Composite Coating of Ag Nanowires and PEDOT:PSS
Journal article, 2020

Electrically conducting fibers and yarns are critical components of future wearable electronic textile (e-textile) devices such as sensors, antennae, information processors, and energy harvesters. To achieve reliable wearable devices, the development of robust yarns with a high conductivity and excellent washability is urgently needed. In the present study, highly conductive and machine-washable silk yarns were developed utilizing a Ag nanowire and PEDOT:PSS composite coating. Ag nanowires were coated on the silk yarn via a dip-coating process followed by coating with the conjugated polymer:polyelectrolyte complex PEDOT:PSS. The PEDOT:PSS covered the Ag nanowire layers while electrostatically binding to the silk, which significantly improved the robustness of the yarn as compared with the Ag nanowire-coated reference yarns. The fabricated conductive silk yarns had an excellent bulk conductivity of up to ∼320 S/cm, which is largely retained even after several cycles of machine washing. To demonstrate that these yarns can be incorporated into e-textiles, the conductive yarns were used to construct an all-textile out-of-plane thermoelectric device and a Joule heating element in a woven heating fabric.

nanocomposite

PEDOT:PSS

Ag nanowire

washing machine proof

conductive silk yarn

Author

Byungil Hwang

Chung-Ang University

Anja Lund

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Yuan Tian

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Sozan Darabi

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Christian Müller

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

1944-8244 (ISSN) 1944-8252 (eISSN)

Vol. 12 24 27537-27544

Subject Categories

Manufacturing, Surface and Joining Technology

Textile, Rubber and Polymeric Materials

Composite Science and Engineering

DOI

10.1021/acsami.0c04316

PubMed

32441502

More information

Latest update

10/21/2021