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The development of wearable electronic devices has greatly stimulated the research interest of textile-based strain sensors, which can effectively combine functionality with wearability. In this work, the fabrication of highly stretchable and compressible strain sensors from weft-knitted spacer fabric was reported. Carbon nanotubes and polypyrrole were deposited on the surface of fabric via an in situ polymerization approach to reduce the electrical resistance. The as-fabricated WSP-CNT-PPy strain sensor exhibits high electrical conductivity and stable strain-sensing performance under different stretching deformations. The WSP-CNT-PPy strain sensor can be stretched up to 450% and compressed to 60% with a pressure of less than 50 KPa, which can be attributed to the unique loop and interval filament structures. The distinguishing response efficiency of WSP-CNT-PPy can effectively detect faint and strenuous body movements. In addition, the electrochemical behavior of WSP-CNT-PPy was also characterized to study the comprehensive properties. The electro-heating performance was also evaluated for feasible Joule heater applications. This work demonstrates the practicability of WSP-CNT-PPy strain sensor fabric for real-time monitoring in promising wearable garments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A green approach was successfully developed to fabricate flexible sensors by utilizing carbonized waste cotton fabrics in combination with natural rubber latex. Waste cotton fabrics were firstly carbonized by heat treatment in the nitrogen atmosphere before they were combined with natural rubber latex using three methods, i.e., vacuum bagging, negative pressure adsorption and drop coating. After impregnation with natural rubber, the carbonized cotton maintained the fabric structure and showed good conductivity. More importantly, the electric resistance of the textile composites changed with the tensile strain. The cyclic stretching-releasing tests indicated that the prepared wearable flexible strain sensors were sensitive to strain and stable under cyclic loading. The flexible strain sensor also demonstrated the capability of monitoring human finger and arm motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]