Helical Stretchable Conductive Sensing Liquid Metal Nanofiber-Yarn with Embedded Hierarchical Structure for Wearable Electronic

Conductive sensing fiber/yarn is an essential component of wearable electronics, which simultaneously satisfies the requirements of high conductivity, mechanical flexibility, and stretchability. Thus, adopting a facile preparation strategy and combining micro/nanostructures design to construct high-performance conductive fibers/yarns is in demand. In this work, a LM/CNTs/PU conductive sensing nanofiber yarn with embedded hierarchical structure is prepared by the conjugated electrospinning/electrospraying technology in one step. The liquid metal (LM) and CNTs embedded within oriented PU nanofiber network form an efficient and interconnected composite conductive network, which not only endows the conductive sensing nanofiber yarn with conductivity but also delivers good strain sensitivity (GF = 1.0745) and cyclic stability of the assembled LM/CNTs/PU yarn sensor. By attaching the yarn sensor to different human body, movement can be effectively monitored. Moreover, the conductive sensing nanofiber yarn can serve as the electrode to form a yarn-based triboelectric nanogenerator by wrapping PTFE materials, which exhibits good triboelectric performance and can light up a small bulb. Moreover, the conductive sensing nanofiber yarn also exhibits electrothermal properties. In short, this study provides a facile conjugated electrospinning/electrospraying technology to design innovative conductive yarn, which has significant applications in wearable electronics and offers research insights for versatile smart textiles.