Fabrication And Investigation Of PPy-coated Electrically Conducting Fabrics

With the progress of the science and technology, smart textiles are becoming a hot research topic within the forefront of textile technology.Some experts regard smart textiles as the future of textile and garment industry.Since the 1970s,the progress of condutive polymer technology has contributed to the rapid development of smart conductive textiles. Conductive fabric has great advantages in the application of flexible sensors.It has conductivity and retains the flexible nature of textiles. Therefore, fabrication of conductive fabrics with good conductivity and reliable sensing and responding ability is a prerequisite for flexible sensors.This research work selects elastic Polyester/Spandex blended knitted fabrics as the substrates. FeCl₃ is oxidant and sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate is dopant. It improves the current chemical vapor deposition processing in fabricating conductive fabrics by using self-designed device to produce conductive PPy-coated fabrics which are sensitive to external stretch under low temperature and low pressure conditions. This has greatly increased the fabricating efficiency. The single-factor experimental method is used to explore the effect of oxidant concentration, dopant concentration and polymerization temperature on the conductivity of conductive fabric. On this basis,the orthogonal experimental methodsis used to explore the effect of the above-mentioned parameters on conductivity, sensitivity to the stretch stimulus as well as signal responding stability of conductive fabrics. The proper processing parameters have been worked out for producing the fabrics which have reliable sensing and responding ability.It has been found that the conductivity of conductive fabrics becomes better with the increase of oxidant concentration within a certain range.The conductivity of conductive fabrics becomes better after doping.however, the concentration of dopant has little effect on their conductivity. The conductivity of conductive fabrics becomes better with the reduce of polymerization temperature. By using orthogonal experiment,it obtains that the proper processing parameters are that the oxidant concentration is 0.3mol.L^-1, the dopant concentration is 0.1mol.L^-1,the polymerization temperature is -15℃.Compared with the substates, the strength, ventilation volume and water vapor permeability of conduvtive fabrics have declined.It declines more obvious with the increase of oxidant concentration.The conductivity of conductive fabrics becomes bad after rubbing.heThe theory, method and the experimental data in this research work have provided important and valuable theoretical and practical bases for further development of smart textiles.