Free‐Standing and Eco‐Friendly Polyaniline Thin Films for Multifunctional Sensing of Physical and Chemical Stimuli

Multifunctional flexible sensors that are sensitive to different physical and chemical stimuli but remain unaffected by any mechanical deformation and/or changes still present a challenge in the implementation of flexible devices in real-world conditions. This challenge is greatly intensified by the need for an eco-friendly fabrication technique suitable for mass production. A new eco-friendly and scalable fabrication approach is reported for obtaining thin and transparent multifunctional sensors with regulated electrical conductivity and tunable band-gap. A thin (≈190 nm thickness) freestanding sensing film with up to 4 inch diameter is demonstrated. Integration of the freestanding films with different substrates, such as polyethylene terephthalate substrates, silk textile, commercial polyethylene thin film, and human skin, is also described. These multifunctional sensors can detect and distinguish between different stimuli, including pressure, temperature, and volatile organic compounds. All the sensing properties explored are stable under different bending/strain states.

[1]  Benjamin C. K. Tee,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Electronic Skin (E‐Skin): A Brief History, Design Considerations, and Recent Progress , 2013, Advanced materials.

[2]  Yen Wei,et al.  Monitoring the chemical polymerization of aniline by open-circuit-potential measurements , 1994 .

[3]  Subhasish Roy,et al.  Significant Enhancement of Proton Transport in Bioinspired Peptide Fibrils by Single Acidic or Basic Amino Acid Mutation , 2017 .

[4]  Z. Suo,et al.  A transparent bending-insensitive pressure sensor. , 2016, Nature nanotechnology.

[5]  Seon Joo Park,et al.  Multidimensional conducting polymer nanotubes for ultrasensitive chemical nerve agent sensing. , 2012, Nano letters.

[6]  J. Jang,et al.  A Comparative Study on Optical, Electrical, and Mechanical Properties of Conducting Polymer-Based Electrodes. , 2015, Small.

[7]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Advanced Materials for Health Monitoring with Skin‐Based Wearable Devices , 2017, Advanced healthcare materials.

[8]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Self‐Healing, Fully Functional, and Multiparametric Flexible Sensing Platform , 2016, Advanced materials.

[9]  Adrian J. Y. Chee,et al.  High Sensitivity, Wearable, Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors Based on Irregular Microhump Structures and Its Applications in Body Motion Sensing. , 2016, Small.

[10]  B. de Lacy Costello,et al.  A review of the volatiles from the healthy human body , 2014, Journal of breath research.

[11]  Yanping Cao,et al.  Bioinspired Fabrication of Free-Standing Conducting Films with Hierarchical Surface Wrinkling Patterns. , 2016, ACS nano.

[12]  Hossam Haick,et al.  High‐Resolution Unpixelated Smart Patches with Antiparallel Thickness Gradients of Nanoparticles , 2015, Advanced materials.

[13]  Han Jin,et al.  Composites of Polymer and Carbon Nanostructures for Self‐Healing Chemical Sensors , 2016 .

[14]  H. Haick,et al.  Dynamic Nanoparticle-Based Flexible Sensors: Diagnosis of Ovarian Carcinoma from Exhaled Breath. , 2015, Nano letters.

[15]  Lain-Jong Li,et al.  Highly flexible MoS2 thin-film transistors with ion gel dielectrics. , 2012, Nano letters.

[16]  Feng Guo,et al.  In situ prepared transparent polyaniline electrode and its application in bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells. , 2011, ACS nano.

[17]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Detection of precancerous gastric lesions and gastric cancer through exhaled breath , 2015, Gut.

[18]  M. I. Florit,et al.  Quasi-equilibrium volume changes of polyaniline films upon redox switching. Formal potential distribution and configurational modeling. , 2005, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[19]  Sam Emaminejad,et al.  Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis , 2016, Nature.

[20]  Xiaodong Chen,et al.  Hierarchical graphene-polyaniline nanocomposite films for high-performance flexible electronic gas sensors. , 2016, Nanoscale.

[21]  K. Müllen,et al.  Scaffold‐Optimized Dendrimers for the Detection of the Triacetone Triperoxide Explosive Using Quartz Crystal Microbalances , 2012 .

[22]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Self-Healable Sensors Based Nanoparticles for Detecting Physiological Markers via Skin and Breath: Toward Disease Prevention via Wearable Devices. , 2016, Nano letters.

[23]  Woo-Kyung Lee,et al.  Transfer of Chemically Modified Graphene with Retention of Functionality for Surface Engineering. , 2016, Nano letters.

[24]  H. Haick,et al.  Sensors for breath testing: from nanomaterials to comprehensive disease detection. , 2014, Accounts of chemical research.

[25]  Fosong Wang,et al.  Donor–Acceptor Conjugated Polymers with Dithienocarbazoles as Donor Units: Effect of Structure on Semiconducting Properties , 2012 .

[26]  Assaf Shapira,et al.  Engineered hybrid cardiac patches with multifunctional electronics for online monitoring and regulation of tissue function , 2016, Nature materials.

[27]  Kai Yan,et al.  Toward clean and crackless transfer of graphene. , 2011, ACS nano.

[28]  Ayelet Vilan,et al.  Soft Contact Deposition onto Molecularly Modified GaAs. Thin Metal Film Flotation: Principles and Electrical Effects , 2002 .

[29]  P. Ajayan,et al.  Scalable Transfer of Suspended Two-Dimensional Single Crystals. , 2015, Nano letters.

[30]  Youngjin Jeong,et al.  Highly Sensitive and Multimodal All‐Carbon Skin Sensors Capable of Simultaneously Detecting Tactile and Biological Stimuli , 2015, Advanced materials.

[31]  Zhong Lin Wang,et al.  Power generation with laterally packaged piezoelectric fine wires. , 2009, Nature nanotechnology.

[32]  Paul S. Smith,et al.  Effect of solvents and co-solvents on the processibility of polyaniline: I. solubility and conductivity studies , 1995 .

[33]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Volatile organic compounds of lung cancer and possible biochemical pathways. , 2012, Chemical reviews.

[34]  Kirk Martinez,et al.  Environmental Sensor Networks: A revolution in the earth system science? , 2006 .

[35]  Richard B. Kaner,et al.  Polyaniline nanofibers: broadening applications for conducting polymers. , 2017, Chemical Society reviews.

[36]  Marimuthu Palaniswami,et al.  Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions , 2012, Future Gener. Comput. Syst..

[37]  P. Sonar,et al.  Annealing-free high-mobility diketopyrrolopyrrole-quaterthiophene copolymer for solution-processed organic thin film transistors. , 2011, Journal of the American Chemical Society.