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

这个I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为电子纺织品市场开发新的油墨。最先进的导电油墨系统具有复杂的化学成分。提出的用于智能纺织品的油墨解决了环境问题，消除了预处理和后处理成本，并且具有更好的性能。这可以用于可穿戴传感器、天线和RFID标签等应用。这个I-Corps项目是基于导电和无添加剂水性MXene墨水的开发，这种墨水可以用作染料，将商业纱线/织物转化为功能性设备，也可以用作直接在服装或柔软表面上喷墨/丝网印刷设备的墨水。拟议的MXene油墨配方仅由分散在水中的二维MXene片材组成，可能潜在地解决与使用其他有机物质有关的环境和健康问题，这些有机物质通常用作制备导电油墨的溶剂。此外，由于MXene油墨的无缝集成，涂层后纱线和织物的机械性能无需改性。因此，由此产生的导电纱线或装置是舒适和安全的穿着。初步研究表明，所生产的基于mxene的纱线/织物可以解决传统导电纱线/织物的可制造性和可洗涤性问题，同时可以无缝集成到基于纺织品的设备中。这些问题阻碍了智能纺织品的翻译，尽管它们作为功能设备的平台技术有着巨大的前景。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.