Highly conductive, scalable, and machine washable graphene‐based e‐textiles for multifunctional wearable electronic applications

Abstract

Graphene-based textiles show promise for next-generation wearable electronic applications due to their advantages over metal-based technologies. However, current reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-based electronic textiles (e-textiles) suffer from poor electrical conductivity and higher power consumption. Here, highly conductive, ultraflexible, and machine washable graphene-based wearable e-textiles are reported. A simple and scalable pad−dry−cure method with subsequent roller compression and a fine encapsulation of graphene flakes is used. The graphene-based wearable e-textiles thus produced provide lowest sheet resistance (≈11.9 Ω sq−1) ever reported on graphene e-textiles, and highly conductive even after 10 home laundry washing cycles. Moreover, it exhibits extremely high flexibility, bendability, and compressibility as it shows repeatable response in both forward and backward directions before and after home laundry washing cycles. The scalability and multifunctional applications of such highly conductive graphene-based wearable e-textiles are demonstrated as ultraflexible supercapacitor and skin-mounted strain sensors.

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ORCID for Nazmul Karim: orcid.org/0000-0002-4426-8995

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