Effect of Water and Chemical Stresses on the Silver Coated Polyamide Yarns

Abstract

E-textiles; new emerging hybrid systems and devices require novel standards regarding their reliability and durability in order to gain the attraction and satisfaction for the customers and market readiness. Launderability of e-textiles is one of the key problems for their reliability and maintenance. Standards should fulfill the requirements for both: the textile and electronic parts of e-textile products. In this article, an analysis of water and detergent influence on the conductive yarns which are generally used as a connection in e-textile products is investigated. During the washing process various stresses (mechanical, temperature, chemical, etc.) damage the connection elements such as electrically yarns that make all together a textile circuit board (textile motherboard). All those stresses are moreover interdependent. Water or chemical stresses are supposed to be strongly damaging and should be discussed in details. During the washing procedure it is important to understand the water and detergent effects on the conductive yarns. Therefore, experimental studies are conducted by dipping conductive yarns in those solutions and by extended characterization. Structural changes of yarns are tested by FTIR-ATR, and peaks before and after dipping in the solutions were noted. Results point out the level of damage on the yarn surface caused by chemical stresses due to dipping in solutions. Furthermore, yarn surfaces were analyzed with optical microscopy. Remaining solutions after removing the dipped yarn were also analyzed by UV-Visible Spectroscopy to check any possible removal of silver coating from the yarn into solution, due to water or water detergent solutions. UV-Visible Spectroscopy validated our results obtained by FTIR-ATR peaks. By these experiments, time duration e-textiles can withstand in liquid solution without any loss of conductivity can be evaluated and predicted.