Knitted structural design of MXene/Cu₂O based strain sensor for smart wear

Electronic textiles present an enticing prospect for personal health assessment and physical monitoring, owing to their strong stretchability, high flexibility, mechanical robustness and high capacity in sensing small deformations in human motions. Herein, a multifunctional robust flexible knitting-shaped strain sensor based on the functional heterostructure composed of the conductive MXene (Ti₃C₂T_x) nanosheet and the antimicrobial Cu₂O nanoparticles is prepared via a solution-processable dip-dry coating approach. The textile-based strain sensor exhibits a highly stable and immediate response over a wide range, which shows great advantages in detecting and monitoring human activities, such as smiling, swallowing, and wrist/finger/joint bending. Significantly, these prepared strain sensors present a promising application in smart wear, which was typically employed as the smart sensing gloves in barrier-free communication for hearing-impaired people. Interestingly, the different resistance evolutions of the knitted sensor under both low and high strain were carried out to study the sensing mechanism for the first time. Notably, the strain sensor displays a reliable antibacterial efficiency of ∼99.1% for Escherichia coli and outstanding breathability as high as 190 mm/s. This developed MXene/Cu₂O hybrid materials supplies a new insight for the rational design and synthesis of multifunctional nanomaterials, as well as the achievement of the flexible wearable sensor with high performance.