Conducting Leathers for Smart Product Applications

Abstract

Leather is a unique consumer material possessing a variety of properties such as strength, viscoelasticity, flexibility, and longevity. However, the use of leather for smart product applications is a challenge since it is an electrically insulating material. Here, we report a simple method to produce conducting leathers using an in situ polymerization of pyrrole. The concentrations of pyrrole, ferric chloride, and anthraquinone sulfonic acid and the number of polymerization were optimized to produce maximum conductivity in the treated leathers. The coating of polypyrrole in the treated leathers was probed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopic analysis. We also show that the treated leathers are black through reflectance measurements, thereby suggesting that the use of toxic and expensive dyes can be avoided for coloration process. We further demonstrate that the treated leathers, with a maximum conductivity of 7.4 S/cm, can be used for making conductive gloves for operating touch-screen devices apart from other smart product applications.

Concurrent genesis of color and electrical conductivity in leathers through in‐situ polymerization of aniline for smart product applications

“…Hence, increase in monomer concentration does not translate into enhanced deposition of PANI on leather substrate. Similar observations are reported for polypyrrole/leather and PANI/textile composite preparations . It is also seen that there is a significant change in the intensity of the color of leather from light bluish green to dark bluish green as the concentration of monomer increases as shown in Fig.…”

“…Recently, attempts were made to prepare conductive leathers for producing advanced (smart) products such as leather gloves meant for operating screen touch devices (smart phone, tablet, iPod etc.) and smart garments . Such conductive leathers are highly demanded in heavy winter season for glove production that helps operating touch screen devices comfortably.…”

Regenerating leather waste for flexible pressure sensing applications

“…The usage of the above collagen can not only reduce the leather waste for the environment, but also promote the development of functional materials. In recent years, there have been many researches on the applications of collagen fibers from leather, such as using the collagen fibers to fabricate microwave absorption materials, anode materials, conductive leather and magnetic composites [29][30][31][32]. However, research on using collagen films as substrates from leather waste for flexible electronics has not been reported.…”

The anisotropic structure of electro conductive leather studied by Van der Pauw method

“…They analysed the relationship between surface resistivity and concentration of conductive elements used. Electrical conductivity of polypyrrole coated textiles was investigated by Varesano et al [18]. Electrical surface resistivity of conductive polymers using statistical approach was investigated in [19].…”