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Nuomici-Inspired Universal Strategy for Boosting Piezoresistive Sensitivity and Elasticity of Polymer Nanocomposite-Based Strain Sensors

Ke K, Wang Y, Li Y, Yang J, Poetschke P, Voit B (2019)

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Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Book Volume: 11

Pages Range: 35362-35370

Journal Issue: 38

DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b13510

Abstract

Electrically conductive polymer composites (CPCs) are potential alternatives to conventional strain gauges due to their tunable sensitivity and strain ranges. Currently, to achieve very high piezoresistive sensitivity in thermoplastic-based CPCs with Gauge factors GF above 20 at low tensile strains (ϵ ≤ 5%) is a big challenge, but critical for structural health monitoring application in infrastructures. Here, inspired by the unique structures of a famous Chinese food, nuomici, we coat carbon nanotubes (CNTs) onto sticky acrylic rubber (AR) granules (ARG) to form nuomici-like CNT@ARG composite granules, which are employed as unique conductive filler to fabricate highly piezoresistive and flexible CPCs based on poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF). This strategy of localizing CNTs densely on the surface of touching rubbery particles resulted in a much more sensitive elastic conductive network built by the CNT@AR composite and showed a big gain effect. The resultant PVDF/CNT@AR nanocomposites (AR content ranging from 0 to 10 wt %) show extremely high piezoresistive sensitivity at low strain, depending on the AR content. In particular, the GF value of PVDF with 1.5 wt % CNT@10 wt % AR is 41 at 5% strain, which is more than one magnitude higher than that (ca. 3) of traditional PVDF/CNT nanocomposite sensors. Moreover, the elongation at break increases by about 60% with the addition of 1.5 wt CNT@10 wt % AR. This study introduces a universal effective strategy for tailoring the mechanical properties and strain sensitivity of conductive network in CPCs, which is critical for the fabrication of high-performance strain sensors.

Involved external institutions

How to cite

APA:

Ke, K., Wang, Y., Li, Y., Yang, J., Poetschke, P., & Voit, B. (2019). Nuomici-Inspired Universal Strategy for Boosting Piezoresistive Sensitivity and Elasticity of Polymer Nanocomposite-Based Strain Sensors. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 11(38), 35362-35370. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b13510

MLA:

Ke, Kai, et al. "Nuomici-Inspired Universal Strategy for Boosting Piezoresistive Sensitivity and Elasticity of Polymer Nanocomposite-Based Strain Sensors." ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 11.38 (2019): 35362-35370.

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