Abstract
The following paper presents a simple, inexpensive and scalable method of production of carbon nanotube-polyurethane elastomer composite. The new method enables the formation of fibers with 40% w/w of nanotubes in a polymer. Thanks to the 8 times higher content of nanotubes than previously reported for such composites, over an order of magnitude higher electrical conductivity is also observed. The composite fibers are highly elastic and both their electrical and mechanical properties may be easily controlled by changing the nanotubes content in the composite. It is shown that these composite fibers may be easily integrated with traditional textiles by sewing or ironing. However, taking into account their light-weight, high conductivity, flexibility and easiness of molding it may be expected that their potential applications are not limited to the smart textiles industry.
Highlights
The area of smart or intelligent textiles/clothing integrating textiles with electronics is currently one of the most invested and rapidly developing modern technology fields [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
In the following work we developed a simple and low-cost method of production of highly conductive, flexible and light-weight composites fibers, which are composed of well-known to textile industry thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
As mentioned in the introduction, the production methods used for the fabrication of pure Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-TPU composite fiber reported so far, were based on simple mixing of polymer melt/solution with the nanofiller powder which resulted in low nanofiller content and low conductivity [22,23,25,26]
Summary
The area of smart or intelligent textiles/clothing integrating textiles with electronics is currently one of the most invested and rapidly developing modern technology fields [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Taking into account a great number of potential solutions which could be enabled by smart clothing technologies, it is highly desirable to conduct research on new electronics, materials and manufacturing methods which may serve the development of novel e-textile applications. Important in this respect is the development of electrically conductive and electronically active materials fulfilling additional requirements of the textile industry, such as flexibility, elasticity, strength, light-weight, washability and low-cost of production. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are light-weight highly conductive, high aspect-ratio pure carbon allotropes which may be already produced on an industrial scale and at low cost
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