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An eco-friendly and highly sensitive loofah@CF/CNT 3D piezoresistive sensor for human activity monitoring and mechanical cotrol

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Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) porous piezoresistive sensors are widely used because of their simple fabrication and convenient signal acquisition. However, because of the dependence on organic skeleton materials and the complexity of conductive coating preparation, the electrical and mechanical properties of 3D wearable piezoresistive sensors have gradually failed to accommodate many emerging fields. Here, a new flexible 3D piezoresistive sensor (NF3PS) with high sensitivity and a wide measurement range is proposed, which comprises a natural porous loofah as a flexible framework and carbon fiber/carbon nanotube (CF/CNT) multiscale composite as a conductive coating. Composed of cellulose and lignin, the irregular, porous loofah has excellent mechanical strength, elasticity, and toughness, ensuring a repeated compression/recovery behavior of the NF3PS. In addition, compared with the single-size carbon coating, the coupling of multiscale CF/CNT composite coating improves sensitivities over a range of pressures. The NF3PS demonstrates a sensitivity of 6.94 kPa−1 with good linearity in the pressure range of 0–11.2 kPa and maintains a sensitivity of 0.28 kPa 1 in an ultrawide measurement range of 11.2–84.6 kPa. Considering flexibility, robustness, and wide-ranging linear resistance variation, the feasibility of the NF3PS in human activity monitoring, mechanical control, and smart homes is verified. This work provides a novel strategy for a new generation of 3D flexible pressure sensors for improving sensitivity and measurement range and demonstrates attractive applications in wearable sensors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering, Langfang, 065000, China

    Jie Zhu, YongTao Song, XiaoFei Xue, ZhiLong Liu, QingYuan Mao & ZhenHua Jia

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  1. Jie Zhu
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  2. YongTao Song
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  3. XiaoFei Xue
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  4. ZhiLong Liu
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  5. QingYuan Mao
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  6. ZhenHua Jia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to ZhenHua Jia.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52175554), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (Grant No. F2021409007), the Hebei Province Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars (Grant No. C20220103), and the School Research Fund Project (Grant Nos. ZDYY-2021-01, YKY-2022-33).

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Zhu, J., Song, Y., Xue, X. et al. An eco-friendly and highly sensitive loofah@CF/CNT 3D piezoresistive sensor for human activity monitoring and mechanical cotrol. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 65, 2667–2674 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2204-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2204-2

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