Large-Area Carbon Nanotube-Based Flexible Composites for Ultra-Wide Range Pressure Sensing and Spatial Pressure Mapping

Flexible pressure sensors are of broad interest for applications including human-machine interfaces, wearable electronics, and object/motion detection. However, complexities associated with constituent materials, fabrication processes, sensing mechanisms, and hardwiring often hinder the large-scale applications of using high performance pressure sensors reported in the literature. Here we demonstrate a large-area, highly flexible, conformable, and mechanically robust pressure sensor using a silicone elastomer with an embedded nonwoven textile carrier coated with carbon nanotubes. The selected silicone polymer allows through-thickness deformability of the sensor while the high modulus textile carrier ensures in-plane stiffness and stability. The sensor has an initial electrical conductivity of 4.4 ± 0.38 S/m and is fabricated using a straightforward dip coating and polymer infusion process and can be easily scaled-up for large-scale applications. On the basis of its hierarchical composite structure, this piezoresistive pressure sensor possesses extremely high resilience under compression, a repeatable monotonic positive pressure correlation, and an ultrawide elastic working range (5.5 ± 0.5 MPa) that can be segmentally linearized. A true two-dimensional modality for spatial pressure mapping is realized by utilizing electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and demonstrated to yield conductivity maps that can estimate the location, shape, and amplitude of both localized and distributed pressure with simple contact areas.