Fabrication of reusable bioprotective nanofabric with passive nano-Ag/Joule thermal disinfection properties for real-time wireless fine biomotion and gesture sensing

Abstract

The frequent outbreaks of new infectious diseases, with increased difficulty in prevention and control, have raised higher requirements for bio-protective smart textiles. However, current wearable sensing materials face challenges with thermal and humidity comfort, bioprotection, reusability, self-disinfection, and wireless real-time sensing ability. Herein, an ultralight and breathable sandwich-structured interlayer nanofiber composite consisting of two outer microporous layers of polyimide nanofibers embedded with AgNPs (Ag@PINFs) and one nanoporous conductive layer (＜100 nm) of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been demonstrated by in-situ reduction, electrospinning, and suction filtration to improve the triboelectric output performance and impart passive/active self-disinfection abilities to triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). The TENG was designed with a triple bio-protection function. This included a passive physical barrier effect, nano-Ag active disinfection, and active Joule-heat disinfection function, which ensures the reusability of TENG. As-prepared TENG possessed the following advantages: (i) good moisture-penetrability; (ii) good water and blood penetration resistance (≥17.2 kPa; ≥7kpa); (iii) improved triboelectric output performances (∼1.6 W/m2 at Ag content of 500 mg/kg); (iv) ultrahigh UV resistance (UPF＞6480); (v) high particle and wet/dry microbial filtration performance (PFE = 99.95%; wet microbial penetration time＞75 min; penetrated dry microbial: lg(cfu)=0); (vi) active bactericidal abilities with killing rates of ∼100% against E. Coli and S. aureus at Ag content of ≥ 70 mg/kg; (vii) high Joule heat self-disinfection efficiency with killing rates of 100% at applied voltage of ≥ 5 V; (viii) a wireless real-time sensing ability to distinguish fine biomotion such as swallowing, coughing, and normal speech and shouting, as well as recognizing hand gesture by developed two/four-channel wearable wireless monitoring system (∼18 g). The TENG has trinity performances including bio-protection, self-disinfection, and wireless fine biomotion and gesture sensing, which has potential applications in medical field.