Durable, Highly Electrically Conductive Cotton Fabrics with Healable Superamphiphobicity.

Abstract

Electrically conductive fabrics with liquid repellency and corrosive resistance are strongly desirable for wearable displays, biomedical sensors, and so forth. In the present work, highly electrically conductive and healable superamphiphobic cotton fabrics are fabricated by a solution-dipping method that involves (NH4)2PdCl4-catalyzed electroless deposition of Cu and the subsequent deposition of a mixture of fluorinated-decyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (F-POSS) and 1 H,1 H,2 H,2 H-perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane (POTS) on cotton fabrics. Because of their superamphiphobicity, the resulting fabrics are self-cleaning and exhibit excellent resistance against corrosive acidic and basic solutions. The as-prepared fabrics have a sheet resistance of ∼0.33 Ω·sq-1 and show excellent electromagnetic interference shielding and electrothermal heating ability. Because of the preserved F-POSS and POTS molecules, the fabrics can conveniently and repeatedly restore the loss of superamphiphobicity by applying a low voltage of 1.0 V or heating the fabrics at 135 °C to facilitate the migration of the preserved F-POSS and POTS to the surface of cotton fabrics. The integration of healable superamphiphobicity into the Cu-coated fabrics generates multiple functional cotton fabrics with excellent conductivity, electromagnetic interference shielding, self-cleaning ability, and significantly enhanced durability.