Highly Elastic Melamine Graphene/MWNT Hybrid Sponge for Sensor Applications

The rapidly increased interest in multifunctional nanoelectronic devices, such as wearable monitors, smart robots, and electronic skin, motivated many researchers toward the development of several kinds of sensors in recent years. Flexibility, stability, sensitivity, and low cost are the most important demands for exploiting stretchable or compressible strain sensors. This article describes the formation and characteristics of a flexible, low-cost strain sensor by combining a commercial melamine sponge and a graphene/carbon nanotubes hybrid. The composite that emerged by doping the highly elastic melamine sponge with a highly conductive graphene/carbon nanotubes hybrid showed excellent piezoresistive behavior, with low resistivity of 22 k omega m. Its function as a piezoresistive material exhibited a high sensitivity of 0.050 kPa(-1) that combined with a wide detection area ranging between 0 to 50 kPa.

Automated summary

This study successfully developed a flexible and low-cost strain sensor by combining commercial melamine sponge with a graphene/carbon nanotubes hybrid. The sensor exhibited excellent piezoresistive behavior and high sensitivity, making it suitable for a wide range of detection.