High performance flexible wearable strain sensor based on rGO and AgNWs decorated PBT melt-blown non-woven fabrics

Flexible strain sensors have attracted wide attention to the field of applications on wearable electronic devices. However, they still have numerous defects, such as low linearity and low sensitivity. In this paper, high-elastic polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) melt-blown non-woven fabric (MB) was chosen as the substrate of the strain sensor. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and silver nanowires (AgNWs) were loaded on the PBT MB surface by simple ultrasonic treatments to form a dense and stable conductive path. The sensing properties of the sensors loaded with the different concentration load ratios of rGO and AgNWs were studied and the best load ratio was 1:0.9. The results showed that the sensor has excellent sensing characteristics, including wide range of applications (90 %), extremely high sensitivity (guage factor (GF) up to 1829 at 80 % strain). Finally, the strain sensor has demonstrated in monitoring an assortment of human-exercises even some subtle physiological signals.