Nickel/silver in-situ modification of wearable and stretchable electrodes for textile-based piezoelectric applications

In recent years, smart wearable textiles such as sensors and energy generators have been utilized for various purposes. Such wearable devices require a stretchable and conductive component to communicate with different sections of wearable gadgets and finally send the signals to the processor. This work presents a scalable strategy for the fabrication of electrically enhanced conductive weft-knitted fabric based on a special pattern modified with the in-situ synthesis of two different conductive components consisting of nickel and silver nanoparticles. In addition, in order to investigate their electrical performance, textile-based piezoelectric using the polyvinylidene fluoride-barium titanate (PVDF-BaTiO₃) electrospun nanofiber as an active layer was fabricated. The tensile behavior in both directions results revealed that modification with nickel/silver reduced Young’s modulus, maximum specific stress, and maximum strain, although there was no significant alteration in their physical properties. This electrical characterization showed that fabrics possessed piezoelectric output voltage of 0.41, 0.71, and 0.47 times in comparison to aluminum foil in untreated, nickel-treated, and silver-treated cases, respectively. Moreover, the dynamic in-plane electrical sheet resistance demonstrated that untreated, nickel treated and silver-treated electrodes are capable of maintaining their conductivity up to rupture strain under tensile loading conditions in both directions. Indeed, this work provides an approach for highly conductive textile-based electrode fabrication for textile-based piezoelectric applications.