Upgrading of cotton fabrics by ionic liquid dissolving joint with wet spinning for stretchable and weavable fiber-based strain sensors

Abstract

With the advent of an aging society, researchers are highly interested in the development of wearable strain sensors because of its promising futures in motion detection, artificial intelligence, and healthcare. Nevertheless, its practical uses are still severely limited by its unpleasant design, low sensitivity, and poor wear comfort. In this paper, we propose to use green solvent of ionic liquid to dissolve and reuse cellulose from cotton fabrics, and by the above method cellulose/ionic liquid solution (CILS) is successfully prepared, followed with the addition of thermoplastic urethane (TPU) to improve mechanical properties and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to provide conductivity through wet spinning technology. The fiber-based strain sensor (ILCCD-4) prepared by the wet spinning has high sensitivity (487), large tensile properties (385 %), low detection limit (2 %), excellent durability (3200 tensile cycles), and fast response time (200 ms). Based on these excellent sensing properties, the strain sensor can detect motion signals from various parts of the human body. The results show that the fiber-based strain sensor has excellent sensitivity, and sensing performance, proving it can be used for smart textiles, wearable strain sensors, and flexible strain sensors.