Superhydrophobic E-textile with an Ag-EGaln Conductive Layer for Motion Detection and Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

As as emerging innovation, electronic textiles have shown promising potential in health monitoring, energy harvesting, temperature regulation, and human-computer interactions. To access broader application scenarios, numerous e-textiles have been designed with a superhydrophobic surface to steer clear of interference from humidity or chemical decay. Nevertheless, even the cutting-edge electronic textiles (etextiles) still have difficulty in realizing superior conductivity and satisfactory water repellency simultaneously. Herein, a facile and efficient approach to integrate a hierarchical elastic e-textile is proposed by electroless silver plating on GaIn alloy liquid metal coated textiles. The continuous uneven surface of AgNPs and deposition of FAS-17 endow the textile with exceptional and robust superhydrophobic performance, in which the conductivity and the contact angle of the as-made textile could reach 2145 +/- 122 S/cm and 161.5 +/- 2.1 degrees, respectively. On the basis of such excellent conductivity, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding function is excavated and the average shielding efficiency (SE) reaches about 87.56 dB within frequencies of 8.2-12.4 GHz. Furthermore, due to its high elasticity and low modulus, the textile can serve as a wearable strain sensor for motion detection, health monitoring, and underwater message transmission. This work provides a novel route to fabricate high-performance hydrophobic e-textiles, in which the encapsulation strategy could be referenced for the further development of conductive textiles.

Automated summary

Electronic textiles have great potential in health monitoring, energy harvesting, temperature regulation, and human-computer interactions. However, current electronic textiles still struggle to achieve both superior conductivity and water repellency. This study proposes a simple and efficient approach to integrate a hierarchical elastic e-textile by electroless silver plating. The resulting textile exhibits exceptional superhydrophobic performance, high conductivity, and good waterproofing, making it suitable for electromagnetic interference shielding and wearable strain sensing.