Conductive cotton fabrics with ultrahigh washability by electroless silver plating after silane modification

Adhesion of conductive components to fabrics is very important to the application of conductive fabrics obtained by coating. The falling off of the conductive coating in laundry process will result in deteriorating conductivity and unstable signal detection when they are used as wearable textile electrodes. In order to obtain conductive fabrics with excellent washing resistance, cotton fabrics were treated with 3-Mercaptopropytrimethoxysilane (MPTS) at different temperature, concentrations and time to introduce thiol groups, then silane modified cotton fabrics were coated with silver via electroless plating. The relationship between silane grafting ratio and electrical resistance was investigated, the results indicated that the silane grafting ratio should be in some range to obtain optimum conductivity of the fabrics. The electric resistance of the obtained fabrics was as low as 0.33 Ω/sq and remained 2.49 Ω/sq after undergoing up to 200 washing cycles. The excellent washability of as-prepared conductive fabrics enables the feasibility to be applied to wearable electronic products.

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