Water-Resistant Mechanoluminescent Electrospun Fabrics with Protected Sensitivity in Wet Condition via Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition Process

Abstract

Mechanoluminescence (ML), which emits light upon external mechanical stress, was applied to fibrous composites. Herein, ML particles were incorporated into poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) electrospun webs to prepare ML/PVDF and ML/PAN composite fabrics. The produced fabrics were treated with O2 and C4F8 plasma to modify the wetting properties, then the effects of composite wettability on the light-emitting response in dry and wet conditions were investigated. The light intensity was greatly decreased when the composite fabrics absorbed water. When the composites were hydrophobized by the C4F8 plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition process, the original light intensity was protected in wet conditions, while maintaining the water vapor transmission rate. As the clothing material would be exposed to moisture in varied situations, the reduced ML sensitivity in wet conditions may limit the application of ML composite fabrics. The findings suggest a facile strategy to fabricate moisture-resistant, breathable mechanoluminescence composite fabrics.

Electronic Textiles

“…Other methods include vapor-processing techniques, such as chemical vapor deposition [147][148][149] or atomic layer deposition [150][151][152]. With these methods, very fine and thus typically very flexible layers can be deposited on textile fabrics or around fibers.…”

A flexible organic mechanoluminophore device

“…A flexible mechanoluminophore device that displays desired patterns by light emission based upon mechanical stimulations holds great promise in a wide range of applications, ranging from human-machine interfaces 1 , to smart textile 2 , to health monitoring 3 , to wearables 4 , to anti-counterfeiting 5 , and to self-powered displays 6 . Primarily motivated to visualize the mechanical stress on materials and structures, there has been a growing interest in developing mechanoluminescence (ML) materials 7 – 10 .…”

Development and mechanism of a fluorescent probe for a Mn(ii) ionic complex capable of recognizing chloroform vapor molecules

“…16 More importantly, the fluorescence properties of the complexes are easily affected by environmental factors such as temperature, metal ions, and solvent molecules. [17][18][19][20][21][22] Thus, they have great potential as fluorescent probes. To date, research on the detection of harmful gases using manganese (II) complexes is still limited, and hence, the detection and identification of chloroform is almost impossible.…”