Approach to engineering the temperature sensing E-textile: A lightweight thermistor as an active sensing element

Abstract

In this paper, we describe an approach to fabricating conductive textiles with temperature sensing capability. The key point of our approach is in combining electronic properties of a molecular organic semiconductor with clothing. A polycarbonate film covered with organic molecular semiconductor was used as the temperature measurement element. To minimize the electrical response of the developed bi layer thermistor to deformations, the thermistor was attached to a rigid film-like platform specifically fabricated in the textile by its local melting. Our study shows that the developed platform enables engineering of the conductive fabric the electrical resistance of which exclusively responded to temperature changes. Such e-textiles may be easily prepared using a simple fabrication procedure and, therefore, they are compatible with conductive sensing fabrics prepared by printing techniques. The developed organic thermistor, being cheap, lightweight and biocompatible, is highly attractive for applications in wearable biomedical technology.