SBIR Phase I: Vapor Deposition for Non-Metallic Conductive Yarns

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发下一代可穿戴设备。应用包括加热服装、生物传感器、纺织超级电容器和纺织能量收集器。到目前为止，存在的其他导电纱线要么是非纺织(金属)，要么是高度改性的纺织材料(碳纤维、金属掺杂和镀金属纤维、碳纳米管掺杂纱线、导电浸墨纱线)，这些材料通常看起来、感觉上或行为上都不像传统纺织材料。该项目将提供可洗涤、机械坚固、封装的导电纱线，可以无缝地融入服装和其他功能纺织品中。这些纱线不受服装的运动、拉伸、弯曲和物理磨损等张力的影响。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目使用氧化化学气相沉积工艺开发基于导电纱线的保形、均匀和坚固的纺织品。该项目使用导电柔性聚合物在低真空下的气相中形成涂层。由于单体和低聚物在沉积过程中到达纱线表面后的平均自由程，蒸汽允许纱线粗糙表面的高度一致性和圆周上均匀的层厚度。可以使用低真空环境来调整这些参数，以改进横向聚合，而不是像其他工艺那样从表面向外进行。反过来，涂层的一致性和均匀性使纱线在很大程度上不受影响，仅对其重量产生轻微影响。此外，通过气相反应，该过程提供了即使在溶液方法中也无法比拟的出色的化学和物理附着力，正如电导率不受多次洗涤周期和重大磨损影响所观察到的那样。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop the next generation of wearables. Applications include heated garments, biosensors, textile supercapacitors, and textile energy harvesters. Other conductive yarns that exist to date are either non-textile (metal) or heavily-modified-textile materials (carbon fibers, metal-doped and metal-plated fibers, carbon nanotube-doped yarns, conductive ink-dipped yarns) that often do not look, feel, or behave like conventional textile materials. This project will deliver launderable, mechanically-rugged, encapsulated conductive yarns that can be seamlessly incorporated into garments and other functional textiles. These yarns are unaffected by strains such as movement, stretching, bending, and physical wear in a garment. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project develops conformal, uniform, and robust textiles based on conductive yarns using a process of oxidative chemical vapor deposition. The project uses the conductive flexible polymers to form coatings in the vapor phase under low vacuum. The vapor allows for high conformality to the yarn's rough surface and uniform layer thickness across the circumference, both due to the mean free path of the monomers and oligomers after reaching the yarn surface during deposition. The low vacuum environment can be used to tune these parameters to improve polymerization in the lateral direction, rather than outward from the surface, as occurs in other processes. In turn, the coatings' conformality and uniformity leaves the yarn largely unaffected only marginally impacts its weight. Furthermore, with the vapor phase reaction, the process offers excellent chemical and physical adhesion unparalleled even with solution methods, as observed by conductivity unaffected by many wash cycles and significant wear.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.