scholarly journals Highly Sensitive, Breathable, and Flexible Pressure Sensor Based on Electrospun Membrane with Assistance of AgNW/TPU as Composite Dielectric Layer

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 2459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Wang ◽  
Yaoyuan Lou ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Qing Sun ◽  
Mingwei Zhou ◽  
...  

Pressure sensors have been widely used in electronic wearable devices and medical devices to detect tiny physical movements and mechanical deformation. However, it remains a challenge to fabricate desirable, comfortable wearing, and highly sensitive as well as fast responsive sensors to capture human body physiological signs. Here, a new capacitive flexible pressure sensor that is likely to solve this problem was constructed using thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer rubber (TPU) electrospinning nanofiber membranes as a stretchable substrate with the incorporation of silver nanowires (AgNWs) to build a composite dielectric layer. In addition, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were painted on the TPU membranes as flexible electrodes by screen printing to maintain the flexibility and breathability of the sensors. The flexible pressure sensor could detect tiny body signs; fairly small physical presses and mechanical deformation based on the variation in capacitance due to the synergistic effects of microstructure and easily altered composite permittivity of AgNW/TPU composite dielectric layers. The resultant sensors exhibited high sensitivity (7.24 kPa−1 within the range of 9.0 × 10−3 ~ 0.98 kPa), low detection limit (9.24 Pa), and remarkable breathability as well as fast responsiveness (<55 ms). Moreover, both continuously pressing/releasing cycle over 1000 s and bending over 1000 times did not impair the sensitivity, stability, and durability of this flexible pressure sensor. This proposed strategy combining the elastomer nanofiber membrane and AgNW dopant demonstrates a cost-effective and scalable fabrication of capacitive pressure sensors as a promising application in electronic skins and wearable devices.

Nanoscale ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 2926-2932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Wang ◽  
Jinting Jiu ◽  
Masaya Nogi ◽  
Tohru Sugahara ◽  
Shijo Nagao ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (31) ◽  
pp. 26314-26324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingtian Shuai ◽  
Pengli Zhu ◽  
Wenjin Zeng ◽  
Yougen Hu ◽  
Xianwen Liang ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (48) ◽  
pp. 13232-13240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longquan Ma ◽  
Xingtian Shuai ◽  
Yougen Hu ◽  
Xianwen Liang ◽  
Pengli Zhu ◽  
...  

A flexible pressure sensor with high sensitivity has been proposed which consists of a typical sandwich structure by integrating a PDMS substrate with a micro-arrayed PDMS dielectric layer.


2020 ◽  
Vol 313 ◽  
pp. 112218
Author(s):  
Qiang Zou ◽  
Zhiming Lei ◽  
Tao Xue ◽  
Shihao Li ◽  
Zhuomin Ma ◽  
...  

Micromachines ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenxin Guo ◽  
Lixin Mo ◽  
Yu Ding ◽  
Qingqing Zhang ◽  
Xiangyou Meng ◽  
...  

Flexible pressure sensors have attracted tremendous attention from researchers for their widely applications in tactile artificial intelligence, electric skin, disease diagnosis, and healthcare monitoring. Obtaining flexible pressure sensors with high sensitivity in a low cost and convenient way remains a huge challenge. In this paper, the composite dielectric layer based on the mixture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with different aspect ratios and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was employed in flexible capacitive pressure sensor to increase its sensitivity. In addition, the screen printing instead of traditional etching based methods was used to prepare the electrodes array of the sensor. The results showed that the aspect ratio and weight fraction of the CNTs play an important role in improving the sensitivity of the printed capacitive pressure sensor. The prepared capacitive sensor with the CNTs/PDMS composite dielectric layer demonstrated a maximum sensitivity of 2.9 kPa−1 in the pressure range of 0–450 Pa, by using the CNTs with an aspect ratio of 1250–3750 and the weight fraction of 3.75%. The mechanism study revealed that the increase of the sensitivity of the pressure sensor should be attributed to the relative permittivity increase of the composite dielectric layer under pressure. Meanwhile, the printed 3 × 3 and 10 × 10 sensor arrays showed excellent spatial resolution and uniformity when they were applied to measure the pressure distribution. For further applications, the flexible pressure sensor was integrated on an adhesive bandage to detect the finger bending, as well as used to create Morse code by knocking the sensor to change their capacitance curves. The printed and flexible pressure sensor in this study might be a good candidate for the development of tactile artificial intelligence, intelligent medical diagnosis systems and wearable electronics.


Nanoscale ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6076-6086
Author(s):  
Gen-Wen Hsieh ◽  
Shih-Rong Ling ◽  
Fan-Ting Hung ◽  
Pei-Hsiu Kao ◽  
Jian-Bin Liu

Zinc oxide tetrapod is introduced for the first time within a poly(dimethylsiloxane) dielectric matrix for the formation of ultrasensitive piezocapacitive pressure sensors.


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