Graphene textiles for wearable electronics

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Jiangnan University have devised a method for depositing graphene-based inks onto cotton to produce a conductive textile. Their work demonstrates a wearable motion sensor based on the conductive cotton.

Cotton fabric is widespread in clothing and textiles as it is breathable, comfortable to wear and durable to wash — properties which also make it suitable for use in textile electronics. With this in mind, Dr Felice Torrisi at the Cambridge Graphene Centre (CGC) and his colleagues developed a low-cost, sustainable and environmentally friendly method for making conductive cotton textiles by impregnating them with a graphene-based conductive ink.

The process begins with the placement of tiny graphene sheets, each less than one nanometre thick, in a water-based dispersion. These sheets of ink were chemically modified to adhere well to the cotton fibres during printing and deposition on the fabric, leading to a thin and uniform conducting network of many graphene sheets.

The adhesion of the modified graphene to the cotton fibre is similar to the way cotton holds coloured dyes and allows the fabric to remain conductive after several washes. Heat treatment after depositing the ink on the fabric further improved the conductivity of the modified graphene.

The graphene textiles stand apart from current wearable technologies which rely on rigid electronic components mounted on flexible materials such as plastic films or textiles. These offer limited compatibility with the skin, are damaged when washed and are uncomfortable to wear because they are not breathable. Furthermore, said Dr Torrisi, “Other conductive inks are made from precious metals such as silver, which makes them very expensive to produce and not sustainable, whereas graphene is both cheap, environmentally friendly and chemically compatible with cotton.”

Electron microscopy image of a conductive graphene/cotton fabric. Image courtesy of Jiesheng Ren.

Reporting their technique in the journal Carbon, the researchers tested a simple graphene-coated smart cotton textile that was used as a wearable strain sensor. The textile was shown to reliably detect up to 500 motion cycles, even after more than 10 washing cycles in a normal washing machine.

“The sheet resistance of the conductive cotton fabric only increased from ∼0.9 kΩ/sq to ∼1.2 kΩ/sq after 10 washing cycles, exhibiting good washability,” the study authors wrote. “The conductive cotton fabric showed viability as a strain sensor even after 400 bending cycles, in which the stable change in the electrical resistance went from ∼3500 kΩ under tensile strain to ∼10 kΩ under compressive strain.”

The work opens a number of commercial opportunities for graphene-based inks, with potential applications in personal health technology, high-performance sportswear, military garments, wearable technology/computing and fashion. “Thanks to nanotechnology,” said Dr Torrisi, “in the future our clothes could incorporate these textile-based electronics and become interactive.”

This article is a modified version of a news item published by the University of Cambridge under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Top image courtesy of Jiesheng Ren under CC BY 3.0