Smart Textile Based on 3D Stretchable Silver Nanowires/MXene Conductive Networks for Personal Healthcare and Thermal Management.

Abstract

Wearable electronics have enriched daily lives by providing smart functions as well as monitoring body health conditions. However, the realization of wearable electronics with personal healthcare and thermal comfort management of the human body is still a great challenge. Furthermore, manufacturing such on-skin wearable electronics on traditional thin-film substrates results in limited gas permeability and inflammation. Herein, we proposed a personal healthcare and thermal management smart textile with a three-dimensional (3D) interconnected conductive network, formed by silver nanowires (AgNWs) bridging lamellar structured transition-metal carbide/carbonitride (MXene) nanosheets deposited on nonwoven fabrics. Benefiting from the interconnected conductive network synergistic effect of one-dimensional (1D) AgNWs bridging two-dimensional (2D) MXene, the strain sensor exhibits excellent durability (>1500 stretching cycles) and high sensitivity (gauge factor (GF) = 1085) with a wide strain range limit (∼100%), and the details of human body activities can be accurately recognized and monitored. Moreover, thanks to the excellent Joule heating and photothermal effect endowed by AgNWs and MXene, the multifunctional smart textile with direct temperature visualization and solar-powered temperature regulation functions was successfully developed, after further combination of thermochromic and phase-change functional layers, respectively. The smart textiles with a stretchable AgNW-MXene 3D conductive network hold great promise for next-generation personal healthcare and thermal management wearable systems.