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Preparation of fabric strain sensor based on graphene for human motion monitoring

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Abstract

To date, wearable sensors are increasingly finding their way into application of healthcare monitoring, body motion detection and so forth. A stretchable and wearable strain senor was fabricated on the basis of commercially available spandex/nylon fabric by the integration of conductive graphene network. Specifically, a simple graphene oxide dip-reduce method that enabled scalable fabrication pathway was employed. The good recovery of the graphene-coated fabric led to consistent resistance values despite the strain applied on the fabric and exhibited high gauge factor around 18.5 at 40.6% strain. Moreover, the graphene-coated fabric sensor could detect human motions such as finger bending with acceptable mechanical properties against un-coated fabrics, indicating that it has huge potential in wearable sensors applications.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the NSERC RGPIN 435914 for financial support of this work.

Authors contribution

HL, MG, HC and YC conceived ideas. HL, MG and XL performed experiments. XL and HC established graphene reduction protocols. HL and MG wrote manuscript. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 0C5, Canada

    Hanna Lee

  2. Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2N1, Canada

    Mary J. Glasper & Jane Batcheller

  3. Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada

    Xinda Li, John A. Nychka, Hyun-Joong Chung & Yi Chen

  4. Scion, Private Bag 3020, Rotorua, 3046, New Zealand

    Yi Chen

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  1. Hanna Lee
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Correspondence to Yi Chen.

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Lee, H., Glasper, M.J., Li, X. et al. Preparation of fabric strain sensor based on graphene for human motion monitoring. J Mater Sci 53, 9026–9033 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2194-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2194-7

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