Electronic textiles (e‐textiles) are in prime position to revolutionize the field of wearable electronics owing to their ubiquitous use and universal acceptance. However, mechanical incompatibility between the rigid conductive components on the soft textile platforms creates fragile e‐textile systems with poor electromechanical attributes. In this work, a novel design strategy to inkjet print reactive silver inks onto woven textiles with Kirigami‐inspired patterning to create e‐textiles with enhanced electromechanical features is introduced. By controlling the print processing and curing conditions, uniform conductive coatings with sheet resistances of 0.09 Ω sq−1 are achieved such that they do not interfere with the textiles innate flexibility, breathability, comfort, and fabric hand. The electromechanical coupling of the printed textiles shows a direct dependence on the anisotropic nature of the woven structures. Introducing Kirigami patterning creates robust devices that enhance and stabilize the electrical conductivity (ΔR/R0 < −20%) over large strain regimes (>150%). Furthermore, an electrocardiogram monitoring system fabricated from Kirigami e‐textiles exhibits stable signal acquisition under extreme deformations from arm joint flexion. The distinct properties of Kirigami patterning on e‐textiles enable unprecedented electromechanical performance in wearable textile electronics.
The low-temperature processing, inherent flexibility, and biocompatibility of piezoelectric polymers such as poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based materials enable the creation of soft wearable sensors, energy harvesters, and actuators. Of the various processing techniques, electrospinning is the most widely adopted process to form PVDF nanofiber scaffolds with enhanced piezoelectric properties such that they do not require further post-processing such as mechanical drawing, electrical poling, or thermal annealing. However, electrospinning requires long periods of time to form sufficiently thick PVDF nanofiber scaffolds and requires extremely high voltages to form scaffolds with enhanced piezoelectric properties, which limits the number of usable substrates, thus restricting the integration and use of electrospun PVDF scaffolds into wearable textile platforms. In this work, we propose a facile processing technique to airbrush PVDF−trifluoroethylene (TrFE) nanofiber scaffolds directly onto textile substrates. We tune the polymer concentration (4, 6, and 8 wt %) and the spray distance (5, 12.5, and 20 cm) to understand their effects on the morphology and crystal structure of the fibrous scaffolds. The characterization results show that increasing the polymer wt % encourages the formation of fibrous morphologies and a β-phase crystal structure. We then demonstrate how the airbrushed PVDF−TrFE scaffolds can be easily integrated onto conductive inkjet-printed nonwoven textile substrates to form airbrushed piezoelectric textile devices (APTDs). The APTDs exhibit maximum open-circuit voltages of 667.1 ± 162.1 mV under tapping and 276.9 ± 59.0 mV under bending deformations. The APTDs also show an areal power density of 0.04 μW/cm 2 , which is 40× times higher compared to previously reported airbrushed PVDF scaffolds. Lastly, we sew APTDs into wearable textile platforms to create fully textile-integrated devices with applications in sensing a basketball shooting form.
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