As-prepared Fabrics Research Articles

Multifunctional wearable smart device based on conductive reduced graphene oxide/polyester fabric

Wearable smart devices have drawn tremendous attention recently in the fields including conductive clothing, strain sensors and body heaters for thermotherapy and heat preservation. However, the traditional smart devices exhibit poor wearability and flexibility mainly due to the metallic components they contain, including integrated circuits, semiconductors etc. In this work, we report the preparation of multifunctional reduced graphene oxide/polyester (rGO/PET) fabrics through suction filtration and reduction, using hydriodic acid (HI) and acetic acid based vapour-phase system. As-prepared rGO/PET fabrics showed the square resistance as low as 24.7 Ω/□, when the GO concentration was 3 mg/ml. Meanwhile, the variation of the electrical resistance was insignificant after 100 bending-releasing operations and 10 folding-releasing cycles. When the rGO/PET fabric served as a strain sensor, the rGO/PET fabrics exhibited high sensitivity, remarkable reliability and feasibility. Furthermore, the rGO/PET fabric exhibited efficient electrothermal response, homogeneous temperature distribution and remarkable flexibility as large-area flexible heater. As-prepared fabrics were further analyzed as wearable strain sensors and ultra-fast responding electrothermal heaters, suggesting their great potential as wearable smart devices in personal healthcare applications.

Durable, Highly Electrically Conductive Cotton Fabrics with Healable Superamphiphobicity.

Electrically conductive fabrics with liquid repellency and corrosive resistance are strongly desirable for wearable displays, biomedical sensors, and so forth. In the present work, highly electrically conductive and healable superamphiphobic cotton fabrics are fabricated by a solution-dipping method that involves (NH4)2PdCl4-catalyzed electroless deposition of Cu and the subsequent deposition of a mixture of fluorinated-decyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (F-POSS) and 1 H,1 H,2 H,2 H-perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane (POTS) on cotton fabrics. Because of their superamphiphobicity, the resulting fabrics are self-cleaning and exhibit excellent resistance against corrosive acidic and basic solutions. The as-prepared fabrics have a sheet resistance of ∼0.33 Ω·sq-1 and show excellent electromagnetic interference shielding and electrothermal heating ability. Because of the preserved F-POSS and POTS molecules, the fabrics can conveniently and repeatedly restore the loss of superamphiphobicity by applying a low voltage of 1.0 V or heating the fabrics at 135 °C to facilitate the migration of the preserved F-POSS and POTS to the surface of cotton fabrics. The integration of healable superamphiphobicity into the Cu-coated fabrics generates multiple functional cotton fabrics with excellent conductivity, electromagnetic interference shielding, self-cleaning ability, and significantly enhanced durability.

Robust and durable superhydrophobic fabrics fabricated via simple Cu nanoparticles deposition route and its application in oil/water separation

The exploitation of separation materials with high selectivity for oil pollutants is of great importance due to severe environmental damage from oil spillages and industrial discharge of oils. A facile in situ growth process for creating superhydrophobic-superoleophilic fabrics for oil-water separation is developed. This proposed method is based mainly on the deposition Cu nanoparticles and subsequent hydrophobic modification. Compared with the hydrophilicity of original fabric, the water contact angle of the modified fabric rises to 154.5°, suggesting its superhydrophobicity. The as-prepared fabrics also exhibit wonderful oil-water selectivity, excellent recyclability, and high separation efficiency (>94.5%). Especially, via pumping the fabric rolled into a multilayered tube, various types of oils on water surface can be continuously separated in situ without any water uptake. Furthermore, the superhydrophobic fabrics show excellent superhydrophobic stability, and can resist different chemicals, such as salty, acidic, and alkaline solutions, oils, and hot water. After the abrasion of 400cycles, the broken fabric still possesses highly hydrophobicity with water contact angle of 145°. Therefore, due to simple fabrication steps, low cost, and scalable process, the as-prepared fabrics can be applied in the separation of oils and other organic solvents from water.

Preparation of silver-plated polyimide fabric initiated by polyaniline with electromagnetic shielding properties

A novel and efficient method for the electroless silver plating polyimide fabric was developed with electromagnetic shielding properties. Firstly, polyaniline (PANi) was in situ polymerized with ammonium persulfate used as oxidizing agent. Secondly, Ag+ was in situ reduced to Ag0 by PANi, and the electroless silver plating was initiated by Ag0 used as active center. Fourier transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, contact angle analysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy were used to characterize the composite fabric. It could be observed that silver layer-coated polyimide fabric was compact and uniform with surface resistance about 0.02 Ω/sq. The thermal stability was evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis. The as-prepared fabric had excellent anti-corrosion, tensile strength and fastness. The shielding effectiveness of this fabric could reach 54–90 dB, which implied it was a good candidate as electromagnetic shielding materials in many fields.

Multifunctional non-woven fabrics of interfused graphene fibres.

Carbon-based fibres hold promise for preparing multifunctional fabrics with electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, permeability, flexibility and lightweight. However, these fabrics are of limited performance mainly because of the weak interaction between fibres. Here we report non-woven graphene fibre fabrics composed of randomly oriented and interfused graphene fibres with strong interfibre bonding. The all-graphene fabrics obtained through a wet-fusing assembly approach are porous and lightweight, showing high in-plane electrical conductivity up to ∼2.8 × 104 S m−1 and prominent thermal conductivity of ∼301.5 W m−1 K−1. Given the low density (0.22 g cm−3), their specific electrical and thermal conductivities set new records for carbon-based papers/fabrics and even surpass those of individual graphene fibres. The as-prepared fabrics are further used as ultrafast responding electrothermal heaters and durable oil-adsorbing felts, demonstrating their great potential as high-performance and multifunctional fabrics in real-world applications.

Robust and Durable Superhydrophobic Cotton Fabrics for Oil/Water Separation

By introducing the incorporation of polyaniline and fluorinated alkyl silane to the cotton fabric via a facile vapor phase deposition process, the fabric surface possessed superhydrophobicity with the water contact angle of 156° and superoleophilicity with the oil contact angle of 0°. The as-prepared fabric can be applied as effective materials for the separation of water and oil mixture with separation efficiency as high as 97.8%. Compared with other materials for oil/water separation, the reported process was simple, time-saving, and repeatable for at least 30 times. Moreover, the obtained fabric kept stable superhydrophobicity and high separation efficiency under extreme environment conditions of high temperature, high humidity, strong acidic or alkaline solutions, and mechanical forces. Therefore, this reported fabric has the advantages of scalable fabrication, high separation efficiency, stable recyclability, and excellent durability, exhibiting the strong potential for industrial production.

Stable superhydrophobic and superoleophilic soft porous materials for oil/water separation

In this paper, polyaniline nanofibers were deposited on the surface of fabrics and generated a rough structure similar to the micromorphology of a lotus leaf via the oxidative chemical polymerization of aniline. After modification with n-octadecyl thiol, water-repellent fabrics were obtained. Interestingly, the as-prepared fabrics showed stable and robust superhydrophobic properties towards many corrosive solutions (acidic, basic, salt liquids), hot water, and mechanical abrasion. In addition, it was proven that this method can also be applied to other porous materials with different pore diameters and chemical compositions, such as stainless steel meshes with different pore diameters and sponges. More importantly, the as-obtained diverse superhydrophobic/superoleophilic porous materials can successfully and effectively be applied to separate oil-and-water mixtures. It is expected that this general route to fabricating superhydrophobic porous materials could have many more practical applications, especially in oil/water separation.

In situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles on alkali-treated cotton fabrics

Cotton fabrics were alkali-treated with sodium hydroxide at different concentrations in the range from 1 M to 6 M in order to investigate the effect of alkali treatment on the formation of silver nanoparticles. Alkali-treated fabrics were dipped into the silver nitrate solution followed by chemical reduction, which caused in situ formation of silver nanoparticles on the surface of fabrics. As-prepared fabrics were characterized by scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis and also antimicrobial test was carried out. In addition, the color variation, antibacterial durability, and mechanical properties of the fabrics were assessed. The considerable effect of alkali pre-treatment on loading and stabilizing silver nanoparticles was demonstrated. Fabrics treated at higher sodium hydroxide concentrations have higher silver content. Silver nanoparticles are homogeneous and evenly distributed on fibers with high surface coverage. Treated fabrics exhibit strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, even after 10 laundering cycles. This procedure is facile, cost-effective and versatile and provides a simple route to manufacturing of cotton textiles with high silver content.