Conductive fabrics have received significant attention due to their widespread applications in smart textiles, electromagnetic shielding, energy storage devices and chemical sensors. Coating with conductive materials (nanoparticles and conductive polymers) as colloids is generally practiced however uniform coverage has always been a challenge due to non-wettable surface and incompatibility of the colloids in an appropriate solvent. Here we report a facile and environmental-friendly method for exfoliating graphene and subsequent coating it into a polyamide fabric. Highly concentrated and exfoliated graphene in low-boiling-point solvents (acetone and water) was obtained by optimizing Hansen solubility parameters through mixing solvents. From natural bulk graphite, highly exfoliated (&lt; 5 layers), defect-free graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) solution with excellent colloidal stability were achieved by optimizing solvent ratio, sonication time and centrifugation conditions. The conductive nanoparticles after that infused onto the surface of polyamide fabric via sonication, resulting in the deposition of a thin and homogeneous conductive layer on the surface of polyamide fabric. Four-point-probe measurement data showed the surface resistivity of polyamide fabric decreased from infinity to ~40 kW after 4 hours of coating. The minimal effect on the fabric crystallinity by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis was achieved. The insignificant increase in the I<sub>D</sub>/I<sub>G</sub> ratio, 0.33 to 0.38, of GNPs solution by Raman spectroscopy showed minimal defects were created on the basal plane of graphene after sonication treatment. Surface functional group, surface roughness and surface morphologies of the fibers were examined by FTIR, AFM, and SEM respectively. This interface engineering method is a scalable and economical that can be applied for coating of different polymeric fabrics and solvents and has a great promise for use in conductive or electronic textiles.

Conductive polyamide–graphene composite fabric via interface engineering

255th National Meeting (2018)

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