Additive Manufacturing of Stretchable Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes/Thermoplastic Polyurethanes Conducting Polymers for Strain Sensing.

Abstract

With the development of science and technology, flexible sensors play an indispensable role in body monitoring. Rapid prototyping of high-performance flexible sensors has become an important method to develop flexible sensors. The purpose of this study was to develop a flexible resin with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for the rapid fabrication of flexible sensors using digital light processing additive manufacturing. In this study, MWCNTs were mixed in thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) photosensitive resin to prepare polymer-matrix composites, and a flexible strain sensor was prepared using self-developed additive equipment. The results showed that the 1.2 wt% MWCNTs/TPU composite flexible sensor had high gauge factor of 9.988 with a linearity up to 45% strain and high mechanical durability (1000 cycles). Furthermore, the sensor could be used for gesture recognition and monitoring and has good performance. This method is expected to provide a new idea for the rapid personalized forming of flexible sensors.