Superhydrophobic and breathable smart MXene-based textile for multifunctional wearable sensing electronics

Smart textile devices have now received increasing attention for potential application in wearable human motion monitoring, healthcare and personal thermal management. MXene (Ti3C2Tx), which is a new two-dimensional material with remarkable properties, has been widely applied in wearable electronics. However, it remains a challenge to prepare MXene based smart textile that possesses multifunctional wearable sensing applications and can also keep MXene from oxidizing. Here, we fabricated a waterproof and breathable smart textile by construction of a multiple core-shell structure, i.e., MXene decoration onto the polydopamine (PDA) modified elastic textile followed by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coating. MXene wrapping the fibers formed the conductive network, while PDMS could not only protect the MXene from oxidation but also endow the textile with superhydrophobicity and thus corrosion resistance. The smart textile possessed outstanding and durable photo thermal and electro-thermal conversion performance. More importantly, the textile electronic exhibited sensitive and stable strain sensing performance and temperature sensing capacity with a high thermal coefficient of resistance. Evidently, such smart textile device is highly promising for application in next generation all-in-one wearable electronics.

Automated summary

A new MXene-based smart textile device with a multiple core-shell structure has been successfully fabricated, providing waterproof and breathable properties while preventing MXene oxidation, showcasing excellent photothermal and electrothermal conversion performance.