Abstract
Due to its exceptional sensitivity and conductivity, flexible wearable sensors have received a lot of interest recently in the fields of human health monitoring and motion detection. In this work, a superhydrophobic and extremely permeable pressure sensor using multilayer hydroentanglement cellulose non-woven fabrics modified with carbon nanotubes was prepared by ultrasonic-assisted modification and impregnation. The sensor has high sensitivity (11.78 kPa-1 in 0-5.20 kPa and 0.058 kPa-1 in 5.20-210 kPa), fast response time (49 ms), ultra-wide pressure detection range (0–210 kPa), excellent air permeability (688 mm/s) and long-term reliability. With a 155° water contact angle, it also exhibits exceptional superhydrophobic characteristics, providing an outstanding self-cleaning effect. Importantly, the sensor has been successfully applied to monitor weak movements (pulse, voice recognition) and joint movements in real-time, which has paved the way for human health monitoring and disease diagnosis. In addition, using the superhydrophobicity and sensitivity of the sensor, it can be connected to a mobile phone via Bluetooth for remote real-time monitoring and applied to drowning alarm monitoring in underwater environments, showing great promise in practical applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data in this article are reliable and are available from the corresponding author.
Change history
05 March 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-024-05765-4
References
Azam F, Ali H, Ahmad F et al (2023) A fibrous nonwoven hydrogel composite for shoe insole with enhanced mechanical and comfort properties. J Polym Environ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-023-02980-1
Camilli L, Passacantando M (2018) Advances on sensors based on carbon nanotubes. Chemosensors 6:62. https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors6040062
Chen W, Gui X, Liang B et al (2017) Structural Engineering for high sensitivity, ultrathin pressure sensors based on wrinkled graphene and anodic aluminum oxide membrane. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 9:24111–24117. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.7b05515
Chen S, Jiang K, Lou Z et al (2018) Recent developments in graphene-based tactile sensors and E-skins. Adv Mater Technol 3:1700248. https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.201700248
Chen F, Liu H, Xu M, et al (2021) Flexible cotton fabric with stable conductive coatings for piezoresistive sensors. Cellulose 28:10025–10038. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-04171-4
Chen Y, Yan X, Zhu Y, et al (2022) A carbon nanotube-based textile pressure sensor with high-temperature resistance. RSC Adv 12:23091–23098. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA04036K
Doshi SM, Thostenson ET (2018) Thin and flexible carbon nanotube-based pressure sensors with ultrawide sensing range. ACS Sens 3:1276–1282. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssensors.8b00378
Gao L, Zhu C, Li L et al (2019) All paper-based flexible and wearable piezoresistive pressure sensor. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 11:25034–25042. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b07465
Gao Y-N, Wang Y, Yue T-N et al (2021) Multifunctional cotton non-woven fabrics coated with silver nanoparticles and polymers for antibacterial, superhydrophobic and high performance microwave shielding. J Colloid Interface Sci 582:112–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2020.08.037
Gao S, Li H, Guan H, et al (2022) Facile fabrication of superhydrophobic, flame-retardant and conductive cotton fabric for human motion detection. Cellulose 29:605–617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-04293-9
Gogurla N, Pratap A, Um IC, Kim S (2022) Brush drawing multifunctional electronic textiles for human-machine interfaces. Current Applied Physics 41:131–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cap.2022.07.002
Gupta N, Gupta SM, Sharma SK (2019) Carbon nanotubes: synthesis, properties and engineering applications. Carbon Lett 29:419–447. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42823-019-00068-2
Hantanasirisakul K, Gogotsi Y (2018) Electronic and Optical properties of 2D transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes). Adv Mater 30:1804779. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201804779
He Y, Zhou M, Mahmoud MHH, et al (2022) Multifunctional wearable strain/pressure sensor based on conductive carbon nanotubes/silk nonwoven fabric with high durability and low detection limit. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 5:1939–1950. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-022-00525-z
Heo JS, Lee KW, Lee JH, et al (2020) Highly-Sensitive Textile Pressure Sensors Enabled by Suspended-Type All Carbon Nanotube Fiber Transistor Architecture. Micromachines 11:1103. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11121103
Hinchet R, Lee S, Ardila G et al (2014) Performance optimization of vertical nanowire-based piezoelectric nanogenerators. Adv Funct Mater 24:971–977. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201302157
Ibrahim KS (2013) Carbon nanotubes-properties and applications: a review. Carbon Lett 14:131–144. https://doi.org/10.5714/CL.2013.14.3.131
Jason NN, Ho MD, Cheng W (2017) Resistive electronic skin. J Mater Chem C 5:5845–5866. https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TC01169E
Khalilipourroodi K, Dadashian F, Solouk A (2022) Effect of extraction method on properties of feather keratin grafted modified cotton nonwoven fabric for biomedical applications. J Ind Text 51:2558S–2575S. https://doi.org/10.1177/15280837211006208
Khare R, Bose S (2005) Carbon nanotube based composites: a review. J Min Mater Charact Eng 04:31–46. https://doi.org/10.4236/jmmce.2005.41004
Kim K, Jung M, Jeon S, Bae J (2019) Robust and scalable three-dimensional spacer textile pressure sensor for human motion detection. Smart Mater Struct 28:065019. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ab1adf
Li S, Feng X, Liu H et al (2019) Preparation and application of carbon nanotubes flexible sensors. J Semicond 40:111606. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4926/40/11/111606
Liao J, Zhang S, Tang X (2022) Sound absorption of hemp fibers (Cannabis sativa L.) based nonwoven fabrics and composites: a review. J Nat Fibers 19:1297–1309. https://doi.org/10.1080/15440478.2020.1764453
Li N, Gao S, Li Y, et al (2023) Multi-attribute wearable pressure sensor based on multilayered modulation with high constant sensitivity over a wide range. Nano Res 16:7583–7592. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5371-6
Lin X, Zhang T, Cao J, et al (2020) Flexible Piezoresistive Sensors based on Conducting Polymer-coated Fabric Applied to Human Physiological Signals Monitoring. J Bionic Eng 17:55–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-020-0004-9
Liu Y, Wang H, Zhao W et al (2018) Flexible, stretchable sensors for wearable health monitoring: sensing mechanisms, materials, fabrication strategies and features. Sensors 18:645. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18020645
Madhavan R (2022) Flexible and stretchable strain sensors fabricated by inkjet printing of silver nanowire-ecoflex composites. J Mater Sci Mater Electron 33:3465–3484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-07540-8
Maity D, Rajavel K, Kumar RTR (2018) Polyvinyl alcohol wrapped multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) network on fabrics for wearable room temperature ethanol sensor. Sens Actuators B Chem 261:297–306. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2018.01.152
Manickam P, Kandhavadivu P (2022) Development of banana nonwoven fabric for eco-friendly packaging applications of rural agriculture sector. J Nat Fibers 19:3158–3170. https://doi.org/10.1080/15440478.2020.1840479
Mannsfeld SCB, Tee BC-K, Stoltenberg RM et al (2010) Highly sensitive flexible pressure sensors with microstructured rubber dielectric layers. Nat Mater 9:859–864. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2834
Nela L, Tang J, Cao Q et al (2018) Large-area high-performance flexible pressure sensor with carbon nanotube active matrix for electronic skin. Nano Lett 18:2054–2059. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00063
Pang C, Lee G-Y, Kim T et al (2012) A flexible and highly sensitive strain-gauge sensor using reversible interlocking of nanofibres. Nat Mater 11:795–801. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3380
Park C, Kim T, Samuel EP et al (2021) Superhydrophobic antibacterial wearable metallized fabric as supercapacitor, multifunctional sensors, and heater. J Power Sources 506:230142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2021.230142
Persano L, Dagdeviren C, Su Y et al (2013) High performance piezoelectric devices based on aligned arrays of nanofibers of poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene). Nat Commun 4:1633. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2639
Popov V (2004) Carbon nanotubes: properties and application. Mater Sci Eng R Rep 43:61–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mser.2003.10.001
Qiu L, Bulut Coskun M, Tang Y et al (2016) Ultrafast dynamic piezoresistive response of graphene-based cellular elastomers. Adv Mater 28:194–200. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201503957
Ruth SRA, Beker L, Tran H et al (2020) Rational design of capacitive pressure sensors based on pyramidal microstructures for specialized monitoring of biosignals. Adv Funct Mater 30:1903100. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201903100
Song Y, Huang W, Mu C et al (2019) Carbon nanotube-modified fabric for wearable smart electronic‐skin with exclusive normal‐tangential force sensing ability. Adv Mater Technol 4:1800680. https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.201800680
Sun X, Qin Z, Ye L et al (2020) Carbon nanotubes reinforced hydrogel as flexible strain sensor with high stretchability and mechanically toughness. Chem Eng J 382:122832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2019.122832
Tian G, Zhan L, Deng J, et al (2021) Coating of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on three-dimensional, bicomponent nonwovens as wearable and high-performance piezoresistive sensors. Chemical Engineering Journal 425:130682. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2021.130682
Tian M, Lu Y, Qu L, et al (2019) A Pillow-Shaped 3D Hierarchical Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor Based on Conductive Silver Components-Coated Fabric and Random Fibers Assembly. Ind Eng Chem Res 58:5737–5742. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.9b00035
Trung TQ, Ramasundaram S, Hwang B-U, Lee N-E (2016) An all-elastomeric transparent and stretchable temperature sensor for body-attachable wearable electronics. Adv Mater 28:502–509. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201504441
Wang M, Yu Y, Liang Y, et al (2022) High-performance Multilayer Flexible Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor with Bionic Hierarchical and Anisotropic Structure. J Bionic Eng 19:1439–1448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-022-00219-8
Weng B, Xu F, Salinas A, Lozano K (2014) Mass production of carbon nanotube reinforced poly(methyl methacrylate) nonwoven nanofiber mats. Carbon 75:217–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2014.03.056
Zhang L, Li H, Lai X et al (2018) Thiolated Graphene@Polyester fabric-based multilayer piezoresistive pressure sensors for detecting human motion. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 10:41784–41792. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b16027
Zhang L, Li H, Lai X, et al (2019) Carbonized cotton fabric-based multilayer piezoresistive pressure sensors. Cellulose 26:5001–5014. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-019-02432-x
Zhang S, Tanioka A, Okamoto M, et al (2020) High-Quality Nanofibrous Nonwoven Air Filters: Additive Effect of Water-Jet Nanofibrillated Celluloses on Their Performance. ACS Appl Polym Mater 2:2830–2838. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.0c00374
Zheng X, Hu Q, Wang Z, et al (2021) Roll-to-roll layer-by-layer assembly bark-shaped carbon nanotube/Ti3C2Tx MXene textiles for wearable electronics. J Colloid and Interface Sci 602:680–688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2021.06.043
Zhbankov RG (1995) Infrared spectra of cellulose and its derivatives. Springer US, Boston
Zheng Y, Yin R, Zhao Y, et al (2021) Conductive MXene/cotton fabric based pressure sensor with both high sensitivity and wide sensing range for human motion detection and E-skin. Chemical Engineering Journal 420:127720. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.127720
Zhu J, Ha E, Zhao G et al (2017) Recent advance in MXenes: a promising 2D material for catalysis, sensor and chemical adsorption. Coord Chem Rev 352:306–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccr.2017.09.012
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Research Start-up Fund Project of Shaoxing University and Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Program (New Young Talent Program) for College Students(2023R465032), the General Scientific Research Project of Zhejiang Education Department (Y202351466).
Funding
This work was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Program (New Young Talent Program) for College Students grant number (2023R465032), Research Start-up Fund Project of Shaoxing University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
RZ: Data collection, Analysis, Software, Writing-Original Draft; SY: Data curation, Validation; RS: Review & Editing; CX: Software, Data curation; JW: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing-Review & Editing; WH: Visualization, Validation; ZZ: Supervision, Writing—Review & Editing.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
This article concerns human participants. Participants were volunteers who gave informed consent and agreed to the publication of their results.
Consent for publication
All authors listed in this article agree to be published.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The original online version of this article was revised: The authors discovered that in the process of processing the data, they have mistakenly treated Rmin as R0, resulting in a deviation in the result, which resulted in having to update the sensitivity section in Figure 4 and 6. In addition to the relative resistance values of a,b,c,d,g in Figure 5, the relative resistance values of a, b, c, d, e, and l in Figure 8 and the ordinate in Figure 9 also need to be updated, and do not affect the main results and conclusions of the paper. Due to this error, Figures 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 are updated.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary file2 (MP4 6165 kb)
Supplementary file3 (MP4 4771 kb)
Supplementary file4 (MP4 14512 kb)
Supplementary file5 (MP4 10636 kb)
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, R., Ye, S., Suzuki, R. et al. Carbon nanotube modified cellulose nonwovens: superhydrophobic, breathable, and sensitive for drowning alarm and motion monitoring. Cellulose 31, 3143–3161 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05695-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05695-7