Science and Technology Daily, Moscow, July 31, Tomsk University of Technology in Russia has developed a new material based on nylon fabrics and reduced graphene oxide. This hybrid textile maintains its properties and is conductive during the washing process, which makes it useful for manufacturing textile sensor platforms. The research results were published in the recent American Chemical Society's journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Textile electronics are more advantageous than flexible polymer devices because the textiles are in close contact with the skin. Creates comfortable, lightweight, compact sensors that can read pulses, pressure and other human indicators.

The Chemistry and Biomedical Technology Research Team of Tomsk University of Technology has developed a hybrid conductive material based on synthetic fabrics. They coated graphene oxide on nylon and then lasered. The resulting composite is easy to manufacture and remains stable even after multiple washes.

　The researchers said that during laser treatment, nylon melts, and the result is not only a coating, but graphene particles are embedded in the fibers of the fabric. This ensures that the mechanical properties of the resulting composite material are improved, making it resistant to ultrasonic, stretching and detergent washing, and therefore can be used to modify everyday clothing. After laser treatment, this material becomes conductive and can be used as the active material for the sensor. It is particularly important that such a structure of any shape can be used in the finished form without additional protection or insulation. The fabricated textiles can also be made with the help of silver nanoparticles.

　　Researchers say that the deposited silver particles have the unique optical properties of plasmon particles. This makes hybrid textiles promising to be used in the manufacture of optical sensors. They conducted a series of successful experiments with silver to detect substances such as model dyes and glucose.

During the experiment, the researchers embedded the sensors into gloves made of a mixture of nylon, spandex and polyester, and tested the possibility of using composite materials as sensors to record gestures, measure heart rate in real time, and speech recognition. The experimental results open the way to develop multi-sensor platforms that can be directly integrated into daily use organizations.