Sweat permeable and ultrahigh strength 3D PVDF piezoelectric nanoyarn fabric strain sensor

Wei Fan; Ruixin Lei; Hao Dou; Zheng Wu; Linlin Lu; Shujuan Wang; Xuqing Liu; Weichun Chen; Mashallah Rezakazemi; Tejraj M Aminabhavi; Yi Li; Shengbo Ge

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47810-7

Sweat permeable and ultrahigh strength 3D PVDF piezoelectric nanoyarn fabric strain sensor

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 25;15(1):3509. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47810-7.

Authors

Wei Fan¹, Ruixin Lei², Hao Dou², Zheng Wu², Linlin Lu², Shujuan Wang³, Xuqing Liu⁴, Weichun Chen², Mashallah Rezakazemi⁵, Tejraj M Aminabhavi⁶, Yi Li⁷, Shengbo Ge⁸

Affiliations

¹ School of Textile Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Functional Textile Material and Product of Ministry of Education, Institute of Flexible electronics and Intelligent Textile, Xi'an Polytechnic University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. fanwei@xpu.edu.cn.
² School of Textile Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Functional Textile Material and Product of Ministry of Education, Institute of Flexible electronics and Intelligent Textile, Xi'an Polytechnic University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
³ School of Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
⁵ Faculty of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran. mashalah.rezakazemi@gmail.com.
⁶ Center for Energy and Environment, School of Advanced Sciences, KLE Technological University, Hubballi, India and Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Department of Materials, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK.
⁸ Co-Innovation Center of Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China. geshengbo@njfu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Commercial wearable piezoelectric sensors possess excellent anti-interference stability due to their electronic packaging. However, this packaging renders them barely breathable and compromises human comfort. To address this issue, we develop a PVDF piezoelectric nanoyarns with an ultrahigh strength of 313.3 MPa, weaving them with different yarns to form three-dimensional piezoelectric fabric (3DPF) sensor using the advanced 3D textile technology. The tensile strength (46.0 MPa) of 3DPF exhibits the highest among the reported flexible piezoelectric sensors. The 3DPF features anti-gravity unidirectional liquid transport that allows sweat to move from the inner layer near to the skin to the outer layer in 4 s, resulting in a comfortable and dry environment for the user. It should be noted that sweating does not weaken the piezoelectric properties of 3DPF, but rather enhances. Additionally, the durability and comfortability of 3DPF are similar to those of the commercial cotton T-shirts. This work provides a strategy for developing comfortable flexible wearable electronic devices.