Highly Stretchable and Sensitive Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Based Sensor Decorated on a Polyether Ester Urethane Substrate by a Low Hydrothermal Process

Abstract

We report a highly stretchable sensor with low-concentration (1.5 wt %) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on flexible polyether ester urethane (PEEU) yarn, fabricated using a low hydrothermal process at 90 °C. Although SWCNTs restrict the PEEU polymer chain mobility, the resulting ductility of our nanocomposites reduces only by 16.5% on average, initially from 667.3% elongation at break to 557.2%. The resulting electrical resistivity of our nanocomposites can be controlled systematically by the number of hydrothermal cycles. A high gauge factor value of 4.84 is achieved at a tensile strain below 100%, and it increases up to 28.5 with applying a tensile strain above 450%. We find that the piezoresistivity of our nanocomposite is sensitive to temperature variations of 25–85 °C due to the hopping effect, which promotes more charge transport at elevated temperatures. Our nanocomposites offer both a high sensitivity and a large strain sensing range, which is achieved with a relatively simple fabrication technique and low concentration of SWCNTs.