Scientific Reports (Jun 2017)

Towards conductive textiles: coating polymeric fibres with graphene

  • Ana I. S. Neves,
  • Daniela P. Rodrigues,
  • Adolfo De Sanctis,
  • Elias Torres Alonso,
  • Maria S. Pereira,
  • Vitor S. Amaral,
  • Luis V. Melo,
  • Saverio Russo,
  • Isabel de Schrijver,
  • Helena Alves,
  • Monica F. Craciun

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04453-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract Conducting fibres are essential to the development of e-textiles. We demonstrate a method to make common insulating textile fibres conductive, by coating them with graphene. The resulting fibres display sheet resistance values as low as 600 Ωsq−1, demonstrating that the high conductivity of graphene is not lost when transferred to textile fibres. An extensive microscopic study of the surface of graphene-coated fibres is presented. We show that this method can be employed to textile fibres of different materials, sizes and shapes, and to different types of graphene. These graphene-based conductive fibres can be used as a platform to build integrated electronic devices directly in textiles.