Issue 29, 2016

Fabrication of dual-side metal patterns onto textile substrates for wearable electronics by combining wax-dot printing with electroless plating

Abstract

Textile wearable electronics offer the consolidated advantages of both electronics and textile characteristics. Wearable electronic systems typically require conductive tracks as a platform to integrate electronic components. Herein we developed a site-selective electroless plating process to construct dual-side Cu patterns onto textile substrates. The proposed craft was mainly comprised of four procedures, namely, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS)-modification, wax-pattern printing, selective Au-seeding and Cu-pattern deposition. Specifically, waxes were transferred from commercial wax impregnated papers to APTMS modified fabrics with the aid of a conventional stylus printer. Intensive waxed dots then composed a wax pattern which corresponded to the input image designed on the computer. The wax pattern acted as a hydrophobic mask on the fabric surface and hindered the covered areas from being activated by subsequent Au catalysts. The non-covered areas, in contrast, were APTMS naked surfaces which normally adsorbed Au nanoparticles and had Cu tracks grown. The minimum width of the Cu track was 400 μm with 3.57% deviation and the typical resistivity was 7.52 μΩ cm, which was about 4.6 times that of the bulk metal Cu (at room temperature). The reliabilities of textile-based conductive Cu patterns were confirmed by air-exposure, ultrasonic washing and Scotch®-tape tests. In addition, the universality and versatility of the proposed method were validated by fabricating different metal patterns on various types of flexible substrates.

Graphical abstract: Fabrication of dual-side metal patterns onto textile substrates for wearable electronics by combining wax-dot printing with electroless plating

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 May 2016
Accepted
29 Jun 2016
First published
29 Jun 2016

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2016,4, 7156-7164

Fabrication of dual-side metal patterns onto textile substrates for wearable electronics by combining wax-dot printing with electroless plating

H. Zhao, L. Hou, J. X. Wu and Y. X. Lu, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2016, 4, 7156 DOI: 10.1039/C6TC01979J

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