title: Polyurethane/Cotton/Carbon Nanotubes Core-Spun Yarn as High Reliability Stretchable Strain Sensor for Human Motion Detection.
abstract: Smart yarns and textiles are an active field of researches nowadays due to their potential applications in flexible and stretchable electronics, wearable devices, and electronic sensors. Integration of ordinary yarns with conductive fillers renders the composite yarns with new intriguing functions, such as sensation and monitoring of strain and stress. Here we report a low cost scalable fabrication for highly reliable, stretchable, and conductive composite yarn as effective strain sensing material for human motion monitoring. By incorporating highly conductive single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) into the elastic cotton/polyurethane (PU) core-spun yarn through a self-designed coating approach, we demonstrated that the yarn is able to detect and monitor the movement of human limbs, such as finger and elbow, and even the wink of eyes. By virtue of the covered structure of the cotton/PU yarn and the reinforcement effect of SWCNTs, the composite yarn can bear up to 300% strain and could be cycled nearly 300,000 times under 40% strain without noticeable breakage. It is promising that this kind of conductive yarn can be integrated into various fabrics and used in future wearable devices and electronic skins.
authors: Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong , 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
authors: Zifeng
authors: Z
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong , 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Huang
authors: Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , 11 Hong Chong Road, Hong Kong 999077, China.
authors: Jinfeng
authors: J
authors: Sun
authors: Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong , 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
authors: Yang
authors: Y
authors: Huang
authors: Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , 11 Hong Chong Road, Hong Kong 999077, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Hu
authors: Shenzhen Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. , Shenzhen 518029, China.
authors: Ruijuan
authors: R
authors: Jiang
authors: Shenzhen Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. , Shenzhen 518029, China.
authors: Weiming
authors: W
authors: Gai
authors: School of Mechanical, Electrical & Information Engineering, Shandong University , Weihai 264209, China.
authors: Guangming
authors: G
authors: Li
authors: Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong , 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
authors: Chunyi
authors: C
authors: Zhi
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011140:Polyurethanes; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013784:Textiles
chemical_list: D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011140:Polyurethanes
keywords: conductive yarn; core-spun yarn; single-wall carbon nanotube; stretchable strain sensor; wearable devices