Abstract
Nanocarbon-based conducting fibres have been produced using solution- or dry-spinning techniques. Highly conductive polymer-composite fibres containing large amounts of conducting nanomaterials have not been produced without dispersants, however, because of the severe aggregation of conducting materials in high-concentration colloidal solutions. Here we show that highly conductive (electrical conductivity ~1.5 × 105 S m−1) polymer-composite fibres containing carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires can be fabricated via a conventional solution-spinning process without any other treatment. Spinning dopes were fabricated by a simple mixing of a polyvinyl alcohol solution in dimethylsulfoxide with a paste of long multi-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed in organic solvents, assisted by quadruple hydrogen-bonding networks and an aqueous silver nanowire dispersion. The high electrical conductivity of the fibre was achieved by rearrangement of silver nanowires towards the fibre skin during coagulation because of the selective favourable interaction between the silver nanowires and coagulation solvents. The prepared conducting fibres provide applications in electronic textiles such as a textile interconnector of light emitting diodes, flexible textile heaters, and touch gloves for capacitive touch sensors.
Highlights
Nanocarbon-based conducting fibres have been produced using solution- or dry-spinning techniques
The prepared quadruple hydrogen bonding (QHB)-Long multi-walled CNTs (LMWNTs) were dispersible in N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) or dimethylformamide (DMF) in the form of a paste (10 wt% solid content), which was very miscible with the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) with simple stirring (QHBLMWNT/PVA paste)
To confirm that the prepared paste formed a stable dispersion in the presence of PVA, LMWNT, and AgNWs, we investigated the dependence of the viscosity of the pastes on the shear rate (Figure 1j)
Summary
Nanocarbon-based conducting fibres have been produced using solution- or dry-spinning techniques. Spinning dopes were fabricated by a simple mixing of a polyvinyl alcohol solution in dimethylsulfoxide with a paste of long multi-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed in organic solvents, assisted by quadruple hydrogen-bonding networks and an aqueous silver nanowire dispersion. Even when highly conductive and expensive single-walled CNTs are used, these processes have limited ability to obtain conductive fibres with high electrical conductivity (over 10000 S m21) because it is difficult to minimise the junction resistance between nanotubes In this context, highly conductive one-dimensional (1D) metal nanowires such www.nature.com/scientificreports as silver nanowires (AgNWs) can be a good conducting additive in terms of percolation with 1D CNTs, provided that we can prepare a mixed solution of a polymer and conducting particles that contain a large amount of conducting material. The local population of AgNWs in the fibre was confirmed by removing PVA via so-called chemical scribing of the fibre surface
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