Flexible electronic skin sensor based on regenerated cellulose/carbon nanotube composite films

Abstract

Flexible and stretchable artificial electronic skin (E-skin) has attracted more and more attention in recent years. The incorporation of microstructures can effectively change the contact area and increase the sensitivity of E-skin materials to some extent, but usually require expensive micromachining methods. In this work, cellulose was dissolved in a NaOH/urea aqueous solution and compounded with carbon nanotubes (CNT) to prepare regenerated cellulose (RC) -CNT composite films. Then the microstructure was introduced onto the surface of RC-CNT composite films, and assembled the composite films into an E-skin sensing device. The results indicated that the RC-CNT composite films possessed good flexibility, high tensile strength (61.6 MPa) and strain (17.7%), favorable sensing performance, and good response performance. In addition, in vitro toxicity experiments indicated that the composite films exhibited no cytotoxicity. Therefore, the flexible sensor based on RC-CNT composite films has potential applications in wearable personal health monitoring and tactile sensitive information collection.