I-Corps: Highly Conductive and Additive-free Aqueous MXene Inks for Smart Textile Applications

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为电子纺织品市场开发新油墨。现有技术的导电油墨系统具有复杂的化学性质。用于智能纺织品应用的拟议油墨解决了环境问题，消除了预处理和后处理成本，并具有更好的性能。I-Corps的这个项目是基于开发导电和无添加剂的水性MXene油墨，可用作染料将商业纱线/织物转化为功能性设备，或用作直接在服装或柔软表面上喷墨/丝网印刷设备的油墨。所提出的MXene油墨配方仅由分散在水中的二维MXene片材组成，可能会解决与在导电油墨制备中通常用作溶剂的其他有机物质的使用相关的环境和健康问题。此外，由于MXene油墨的无缝集成，纱线和织物的机械性能在涂层后无需进行修改。因此，所得的导电纱线或装置穿着舒适且安全。初步研究表明，所生产的基于MXene的纱线/织物可以解决常规导电纱线/织物的可制造性和可洗涤性问题，同时能够无缝集成到基于纺织品的装置中。这些问题阻碍了智能纺织品的转化，尽管它们作为功能设备的平台技术具有巨大的前景。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 I-Corps project is the development of new inks for the electronic textile market. State-of-the-art conductive ink systems have complex chemistries. The proposed inks for smart textile applications address the environmental concerns, eliminate the pre- and post-treatment costs, and have better performance. This can be used for applications such as wearable sensors, antennas, and RFID tags.This I-Corps project is based on the development of conductive and additive-free aqueous MXene inks that may be used as a dye to transform commercial yarns/fabrics into functional devices or as an ink for inkjet/screen printing devices directly on garments or soft surfaces. The proposed MXene ink formulation, which consists of only two-dimensional MXene sheets dispersed in water, may potentially solve the environmental and health concerns related to the use of other organic substances usually used as solvent in the preparation of conductive inks. Also, owing to seamless integration of MXene inks, the mechanical properties of the yarns and fabrics do not need to be modified after coating. Therefore, the resulting conductive yarns or devices are comfortable and safe to wear. Preliminary investigations have shown that the produced MXene-based yarns/fabrics may solve the manufacturability and washability problem of the conventional conductive yarns/fabrics while enabling seamless integration into textile-based devices. These issues have prevented translation of smart textiles despite their tremendous promise as a platform technology for functional devices.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.