Abstract
High-performance flexible strain sensors are playing an increasingly important role in wearable electronics, such as human motion detection and health monitoring, with broad application prospects. This study developed a flexible resistance strain sensor with a porous structure composed of carbon black and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. A simple and low-cost spraying method for the surface of a porous polydimethylsiloxane substrate was used to form a layer of synergized conductive networks built by carbon black and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. By combining the advantages of the synergetic effects of mixed carbon black and carbon nanotubes and their porous polydimethylsiloxane structure, the performance of the sensor was improved. The results show that the sensor has a high sensitivity (GF) (up to 61.82), a wide strain range (0%–130%), a good linearity, and a high stability. Based on the excellent performance of the sensor, the flexible strain designed sensor was installed successfully on different joints of the human body, allowing for the monitoring of human movement and human respiratory changes. These results indicate that the sensor has promising potential for applications in human motion monitoring and physiological activity monitoring.
Highlights
In recent years, various flexible strain sensors which convert mechanically-dependent variables into electrical signals have been developed.Applications of such sensors include their use as wearable, soft sensor joints on the surface of the skin, which can measure the biological and physiological activities of the user
The conductive channel was mainly formed by Carbon black (CB)-CB, andporous connections
(a) matrix matrix preparation preparation by bysolution solution conductive channel was mainly formed by CB-CB, CB-multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), and connections mixing; treatment of the in distilled water employed to obtainto theobtain porousthe structure; mixing;(b)
Summary
Various flexible strain sensors which convert mechanically-dependent variables (such as stretching [1], bending [2], and torsion [3]) into electrical signals have been developed. Sensors 2020, 20, 1154 fillers and mental nanowires (such as carbon black [16,17], carbon nanotubes [18,19], graphene [20,21], and Ag nanowires [22,23]) can be combined with flexible substrates (such as polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) [24,25], polyurethane (PU) [26,27], silicone rubber (SR) [28,29], elastic fabrics [30,31], and elastic bands [32]) to make a flexible piezoresistive sensor with a high sensitivity and a large stretch range by a certain preparation method These studies reveal that composites made of a conductive material and polymer can meet the performance requirement of strain sensors.
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