Intrinsically Flexible and Breathable Supercapacitive Pressure Sensor Based on MXene and Ionic Gel Decorating Textiles for Comfortable and Ultrasensitive Wearable Healthcare Monitoring

Abstract

The continuous real-time monitoring of human physical health is crucial in the pursuit in a high quality of modern life and has attracted a great deal of attention in research on advanced wearable pressure sensors. However, most of the previous sensors have been built on flexible solid substrate that is not air permeable, leading to skin inflammation after a long-term skin attachment. Herein, we have developed a flexible and breathable pressure sensor based on nonwoven fabrics decorated with MXene as fabric electrodes and an ionic gel as a fabric electrolyte. Due to the advantages of both the supercapacitive iontronic sensing mechanism and the hierarchical structures of the nanoscaled stacked MXene wrapping on the microscale fabric framework, the optimized pressure sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 31.40 kPa–1 (0–10 kPa), a wide detection range of up to 80 kPa, and a short response time of ∼45 ms as well as excellent repeatability and cyclability. The fabric sensor can be seamlessly woven into textiles for practical wearable sensing and is capable of detecting subtle arterial pulse beats at the wrist and weak breathing rhythms at the chest without affecting the comfort of the wearer. The incorporation of the developed fabric sensors into commonly used clothing through a facile manufacturing process is promising to achieve a comfortable health diagnosis.