Highly flexible, transparent, and conductive silver nanowire-attached bacterial cellulose conductors

Abstract

A simple, rapid method for developing conductive, ultrafine, and high aspect ratio silver nanowires (AgNWs) is reported. Transparent and flexible nanocomposites were fashioned from bacterial cellulose (BC) and AgNWs in a very straightforward and direct manner without the addition of materials or the need for specific facilities. The as-prepared BC/AgNWs composite thin films were able to demonstrate acceptable transparency (near 80% at 550 nm), high flexibility, good mechanical strength (18.95 MPa) and stable conductivity (7.46 Ω sq−1) under various bending states.