Electronic textiles based on aligned electrospun belt-like cellulose acetate nanofibers and graphene sheets: portable, scalable and eco-friendly strain sensor

Abstract

Recently, there has been strong interest in flexible and wearable electronics to meet the technological demands of modern society. Environmentally-friendly and scalable electronic textiles is a key area that is still significantly underdeveloped. Here, we describe a novel strain sensor composed of aligned cellulose acetate (CA) nanofibers with belt-like morphology and a reduced graphene oxide (RGO) layer. The unique spatial alignment, microstructure and wettability of CA nanofibrous membranes facilitate their close contact with deposited GO colloids. After a portable and fast hot-press process within 700 s at 150 °C, the GO on CA membrane can be facilely reduced to a conductive RGO layer. Moreover, the connection among contiguous CA nanofibers and the interaction between the GO and CA substrate were both highly enhanced, resulting in superior mechanical strength with Young’s modulus of 1.3 GPa and small sheet resistance lower than 10 kΩ. Therefore, the conductive RGO/CA membrane was successfully utilized as a strain sensor in a broad deformation range and with versatile deformation types. Moreover, the distinctive mechanical strength under different stretch angles endowed the well-aligned RGO/CA film with intriguing sensitivity against stress direction. Such a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly method can be easily extended to the scalable production of graphene-based flexible electronic textiles.