Ultrastretchable and Washable Conductive Microtextiles by Coassembly of Silver Nanowires and Elastomeric Microfibers for Epidermal Human–Machine Interfaces

Abstract

Electronic textiles offer exciting opportunities for an emerging class of electronic technology featuring intimate interaction with the human body. Among various functional components, a stretchable conductive textile represents a key building material to support the development of sensors, interconnects, and electrical contacts. In this study, a conductive textile is synthesized by bottom-up coassembly of silver nanowires and TPU microfibers. The conformal coverage of AgNW network over individual TPU microfibers gives rise to coherent deformations to mitigate the actual strain for enhanced stretchability and durability. The as-prepared conductive microtextile exhibits a series of desirable properties including excellent conductivity (>5000 S cm–1), exceptional stretchability (∼600% strain), soft mechanical properties, breathability, and washability. The practical implementation is demonstrated by fabricating an integrated epidermal sensing sleeve for multichannel EMG signal recordings, which supports real-time hand gesture recognitions powered by machine learning algorithm as a smart human–machine interface. The conductive textile reported in this study is well suited for garment integrated electronics with potential applications in health monitoring, robotic prosthetics, and competitive sports.

Flexible pressure sensors via engineering microstructures for wearable human-machine interaction and health monitoring applications

“…In addition, interactive control is another important application of human-machine interaction. The humanmachine interface is the communication bridge between humans and machines, and involves obtaining input signals from users and converting to instructions to allow the machine to perform specific actions (Zhao et al, 2021a). A wearable human-machine interaction system based on flexible pressure sensors can significantly improve the interactive accuracy and user experience of the control process.…”

Patterning of Metal Nanowire Networks: Methods and Applications

“…The human–machine interface enables humans to control hardware and collect feedback information. , Patterned MNWNs have demonstrated great potential in human-machine interfaces. Won et al proposed an human-machine interface application of controlling a drone by a real-time measurement of the surface electromyography (sEMG) on human forearms .…”

Intrinsically stretchable electronics with ultrahigh deformability to monitor dynamically moving organs

“…Stretchable nanocomposites are formed by embedding various conductive nanostructures into soft elastomers including carbon nanotubes ( 28 , 29 ), metal nanowires ( 30 , 31 ), and metal flakes ( 32 ). Despite decent conductivity and deformability, the degradations in electromechanical properties of these nanocomposites at fine feature dimensions are unfortunately incompatible with high-density integration ( 33 , 34 ). Electrically conductive hydrogels and polymers are mechanically compliant and well suited for implantable devices ( 35 , 36 ).…”