Flexible piezoresistive sensor based on surface modified dishcloth fibers for wearable electronics device

Abstract

With potential application for health monitoring and images of the interface between machine and human, flexible pressure sensors have attracted more and more attention. However, both the complex manufacturing process and the expensive electroconductive materials limit their wide distribution in practice. Here, we propose a flexible pressure sensor based on carbonizing the dishcloth fibers coated with zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 nanosheets (ZIF-67 @CD), which exhibits a high sensitivity of 3.10 kPa-1, a wide range detection of 0–470 kPa, a low detection limit of 1 Pa, and an excellent stability of 5500 cycles. Meanwhile, the flexible sensor array also shows excellent flexibility and compatibility, which can pave the way for detecting weak airstream, wrist pulses, sound, bending, swallowing, and other real-time signals with greater precision. More importantly, the pressure-sensitive material for this pressure sensor is prepared by a simple process with low material cost, which demonstrates its potential application in the next generation of low-cost flexible electronics.