Low-cost, reliable and flexible piezoresistive pressure sensors coated with single layer graphene and silver nanowires on three-dimensional polyurethane sponge

Abstract

Flexible wearable sensors perform a significant role in practical applications such as medical monitoring, rehabilitation exercises, and artificial skin, as they can quantify and visualize external stress and strain. Polyurethane (PU) sponge stands out as a highly elastic and reproducible material frequently employed as a substrate in flexible electronic devices. Sponge materials with different pore sizes and densities exhibit varying degrees of deformation resistance under long-term cyclic pressure, thereby affecting the performance of sensors. Herein, piezoresistive pressure sensors based on PU with different pore diameters were successfully fabricated by dip-coating technology. By incorporating silver nanowires (AgNWs) and single layer graphene (SLG) into the sponge, both the low-density and high-density composite sponges can withstand over 70 % compressive strain, with stresses of 62.57 kPa and 31.79 kPa, respectively. Moreover, high-density composite sponge demonstrates a more stable conductive structure, more consistent relative resistance and better flame-retardant performance. The response and recovery time between 10 % and 40 % strains of the resulting pressure sensor based on high-density composite sponge (PU@AgNWs@SLG) are 110 ms and 106 ms and its gauge factor reaches 2.39. The pressure sensor exhibits a satisfactory reproducibility after over 3000 compression-release cycles, and performs during various applications, such as controlling brightness of LEDs, monitoring human activities, sensing finger movements.