Development and characterization of conductive textile (cotton) for wearable electronics and soft robotic applications

This study aims to manufacture and characterize various types of conductive cotton fabrics through the copper metal coating approach. Thus, we selected nine-combed cotton knitted fabrics with different yarn fineness and elastane percentage in order to see the effect of these parameters on conductivity and physical properties of the samples. We also explored the surface morphology of all the knitted cotton fabric samples before and after the coating method via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which showed a remarkably uniform deposition of copper on the fabric surface, and performed SEM-energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to determine the coated material content on the surface of the fabric after the metal coating process. The results revealed that knitted cotton fabric of 5% elastane with the finer yarn count (Ne = 40/1) showed excellent conductivity compared to the other knitted cotton fabric of 10% elastane with a finer count (Ne = 40/1) or coarser 5% elastane (Ne = 30/1). Therefore, the knitted cotton fabrics of 5% elastane having the finer count (Ne = 40/1) can be considered a suitable candidate for e-textile applications.