Hypothesis

Nanocarbon/polymeric 3D porous composites have been widely developed as piezoresistive sensors due to their improved performances. Functionalized nanocarbon is usually used to allow its adsorption on the surface of porous polymeric material. However, both the functionalization and the surface localized distribution of the nanomaterial can limit the nanocarbon effect on conductivity and mechanical stability of the material thus affecting piezoresistive performances.

Experiments

A novel nanoarchitectonics strategy to prepare an elastomeric/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) 3D porous piezoresistive nanocomposite is developed. The fabrication route does not require complex apparatus and CNTs chemical functionalization. Moreover, foams of any shape and dimensions can be produced with neither complex machinery and procedures nor wastes production.

Findings

The obtained material is characterized by the presence of well dispersed pristine CNTs on both surface and bulk of the polymeric matrix. The foam exhibited improved piezoresistive properties with excellent compressive stress (>150 kPa), sensitivity at low displacement (29 kPa⁻¹) and limit of detection for both pressure (2 Pa) and extension (130 nm). These excellent features could allow the use of the as prepared nanocomposite in different applications ranging from wearable devices to robotic or infrastructure monitoring with outstanding flexibility.

中文翻译：

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基于碳纳米管和弹性体的高灵敏度和大工作范围的 3D 压阻微孔泡沫的纳米结构

假设

纳米碳/聚合物 3D 多孔复合材料由于其改进的性能而被广泛用作压阻传感器。功能化纳米碳通常用于使其吸附在多孔聚合物材料的表面上。然而，纳米材料的功能化和表面局部分布都会限制纳米碳对材料导电性和机械稳定性的影响，从而影响压阻性能。

实验

开发了一种用于制备弹性体/碳纳米管 (CNT) 3D 多孔压阻纳米复合材料的新型纳米结构策略。制造路线不需要复杂的设备和碳纳米管化学功能化。此外，任何形状和尺寸的泡沫都可以用复杂的机器和程序生产，也不需要废物生产。

发现

所得材料的特征在于在聚合物基质的表面和本体上均存在分散良好的原始碳纳米管。该泡沫表现出改进的压阻特性，具有出色的压缩应力 (>150 kPa)、低位移下的灵敏度 (29 kPa ^-1 ) 以及压力 (2 Pa) 和延伸 (130 nm) 的检测限。这些优异的特性可以使制备的纳米复合材料在从可穿戴设备到机器人或基础设施监控的不同应用中使用，具有出色的灵活性。