Protective Coating for Electrically Conductive Yarns for the Implementation in Smart Textiles

Abstract

The Cluster of Excellence “Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (CeTI)” deals with developments and inventions concerning smart devices used in many fields, e.g. industry 4.0, medicine and skill learning. These kind of applications require smart devices, sensors, actors and conductive structures. Textile structures address these applications by meeting requirements such of being flexible, adaptable and wearable. Within this paper, the development of a protective coating for electrically conductive (EC) yarns is captured. These EC yarns are nowadays often used for smart textile applications. One challenge in their application is the integration into textile structures. Often, the handling and use of EC yarns lead on the one hand to damages on the surface of the yarn and on the other hand to reduced electromechanically characteristics. This paper aims to characterize these EC yarns in regard to develop a suitable protective coating based on polypropylene (PP). To achieve this development, an extensive characterization of the EC yarns as well as the protective coating itself is important. The surface free energy (SFE), the topographical and the chemical characteristics are necessary for developing a suitable protective coating. However, the yarns are characterized before and after implementation into the textile structure and furthermore after the coating respectively with the developed finish.

Environmentally Friendly Protective Coating for Electrically Conductive Yarns Using in Smart Textiles

“…The process parameter is selected in such a way that the yarn cross-section (EC-cross-section) is not changed by pressure and tensile stress. Excessively high pressures and speeds would lead to unwanted stretching and thus to a geometric change in the EC yarn, which in turn means a change in the electrical resistance, since this is geometry-dependent [13]. Washing and further processing.…”

“…These include for example a waterrepellent coating based on SiO2 [10] or a protective polypropylene (PP) coating [11]. Also investigated were the stabilizing silver nanoparticles in aqueous solutions using poly-(vinylpolypyrrolidon) (PVP) for microbial resistance application [12] or a protective coating for polyamide-based EC yarns that are coated with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) [13]. According to the current state of the art, a protective coating for polyamide-based EC yarns that exhibits sufficient elasticity and abrasion resistance while being environmentally and skin-friendly, is not currently available.…”