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14 March 2020
Highly stretchable polymer/silver nanowires composite sensor for human health monitoring
Pei He(
),
Junliang Yang(
)
),
Junliang Yang(
)
Cite this article:
Zhang Y, He P, Luo M, et al.
Highly stretchable polymer/silver nanowires composite sensor for human health monitoring.
Nano Research,
2020, 13(4): 919-926.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2730-z
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Flexible strain sensors exhibit outstanding advantages in terms of sensitivity and stability by detecting changes in physical signals. It can be easily attached to human skin and clothed to achieve monitoring of human motion and health. However, general sensing material shows low stretchability and cannot respond to signals under large deformation. In this work, a highly stretchable polymer composite was developed by adding small amount (0.17 wt.%) of silver nanowires (AgNWs) in stretchable conductive polymer materials. The conductivity of polymer/AgNWs composite is 1.3 S/m with the stretchability up to 500%. The stretchable strain sensor based on the polymer/AgNWs composite can respond to strain signals in real time, even for 1% strain response, and shows excellent stability over 1,000 loading/unloading cycles. Moreover, the strain sensor can be attached to human skin and clothed to monitor joints, throat and pulse of the human body. The human body electrocardiogram (ECG) signal was detected successfully with the polymer/AgNWs electrode, which is comparable to the signal obtained by the commercial electrode. Overall, the sensors enable monitoring of human movement and health. These advantages make it a potential application in wearable devices and electronic skin.
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Highly stretchable polymer/silver nanowires composite sensor for human health monitoring
Pei He(
), Junliang Yang(
)
), Junliang Yang(
)
Abstract
Flexible strain sensors exhibit outstanding advantages in terms of sensitivity and stability by detecting changes in physical signals. It can be easily attached to human skin and clothed to achieve monitoring of human motion and health. However, general sensing material shows low stretchability and cannot respond to signals under large deformation. In this work, a highly stretchable polymer composite was developed by adding small amount (0.17 wt.%) of silver nanowires (AgNWs) in stretchable conductive polymer materials. The conductivity of polymer/AgNWs composite is 1.3 S/m with the stretchability up to 500%. The stretchable strain sensor based on the polymer/AgNWs composite can respond to strain signals in real time, even for 1% strain response, and shows excellent stability over 1,000 loading/unloading cycles. Moreover, the strain sensor can be attached to human skin and clothed to monitor joints, throat and pulse of the human body. The human body electrocardiogram (ECG) signal was detected successfully with the polymer/AgNWs electrode, which is comparable to the signal obtained by the commercial electrode. Overall, the sensors enable monitoring of human movement and health. These advantages make it a potential application in wearable devices and electronic skin.
Keywords:
health monitoring, silver nanowires, stretchable sensor, electrocardiogram
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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Publication history
Received: 16 December 2019
Revised: 21 February 2020
Accepted: 23 February 2020
Published:
14 March 2020
Issue date: April 2020
Copyright
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51673214 and 61804185), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFA0206600), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (No. 2019JJ50804), and the Free Exploration and Innovation Project of Central South University (No. 2019zzts427).
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