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Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables

The necessity to place sensors far away from the processing unit in smart clothes or artificial skins for robots may require conductive wirings on stretchable materials at very low-cost. In this work, we present an easy method to produce wires using only commercially available materials. A consumer...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Albrecht, Andreas, Bobinger, Marco, Salmerón, José F., Becherer, Markus, Cheng, Gordon, Lugli, Paolo, Rivadeneyra, Almudena
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6401758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30961338
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym10121413
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author Albrecht, Andreas
Bobinger, Marco
Salmerón, José F.
Becherer, Markus
Cheng, Gordon
Lugli, Paolo
Rivadeneyra, Almudena
author_facet Albrecht, Andreas
Bobinger, Marco
Salmerón, José F.
Becherer, Markus
Cheng, Gordon
Lugli, Paolo
Rivadeneyra, Almudena
author_sort Albrecht, Andreas
collection PubMed
description The necessity to place sensors far away from the processing unit in smart clothes or artificial skins for robots may require conductive wirings on stretchable materials at very low-cost. In this work, we present an easy method to produce wires using only commercially available materials. A consumer grade inkjet printer was used to print a wire of silver nanoparticles with a sheet resistance below 1 Ω/sq. on a non-pre-strained sheet of elastic silicone. This wire was stretched more than 10,000 times and was still conductive afterwards. The viscoelastic behavior of the substrate results in a temporarily increased resistance that decreases to almost the original value. After over-stretching, the wire is conductive within less than a second. We analyze the swelling of the silicone due to the ink’s solvent and the nanoparticle film on top by microscope and SEM images. Finally, a 60 mm long stretchable conductor was integrated onto wearables, and showed that it can bear strains of up to 300% and recover to a conductivity that allows the operation of an assembled LED assembled at only 1.8 V. These self-healing wires can serve as wiring and binary strain or pressure sensors in sportswear, compression underwear, and in robotic applications.
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spelling pubmed-64017582019-04-02 Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables Albrecht, Andreas Bobinger, Marco Salmerón, José F. Becherer, Markus Cheng, Gordon Lugli, Paolo Rivadeneyra, Almudena Polymers (Basel) Article The necessity to place sensors far away from the processing unit in smart clothes or artificial skins for robots may require conductive wirings on stretchable materials at very low-cost. In this work, we present an easy method to produce wires using only commercially available materials. A consumer grade inkjet printer was used to print a wire of silver nanoparticles with a sheet resistance below 1 Ω/sq. on a non-pre-strained sheet of elastic silicone. This wire was stretched more than 10,000 times and was still conductive afterwards. The viscoelastic behavior of the substrate results in a temporarily increased resistance that decreases to almost the original value. After over-stretching, the wire is conductive within less than a second. We analyze the swelling of the silicone due to the ink’s solvent and the nanoparticle film on top by microscope and SEM images. Finally, a 60 mm long stretchable conductor was integrated onto wearables, and showed that it can bear strains of up to 300% and recover to a conductivity that allows the operation of an assembled LED assembled at only 1.8 V. These self-healing wires can serve as wiring and binary strain or pressure sensors in sportswear, compression underwear, and in robotic applications. MDPI 2018-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6401758/ /pubmed/30961338 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym10121413 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Albrecht, Andreas
Bobinger, Marco
Salmerón, José F.
Becherer, Markus
Cheng, Gordon
Lugli, Paolo
Rivadeneyra, Almudena
Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title_full Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title_fullStr Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title_full_unstemmed Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title_short Over-Stretching Tolerant Conductors on Rubber Films by Inkjet-Printing Silver Nanoparticles for Wearables
title_sort over-stretching tolerant conductors on rubber films by inkjet-printing silver nanoparticles for wearables
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6401758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30961338
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym10121413
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