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Electrically conductive NBR/CB flexible composite film for ultrastretchable strain sensors: fabrication and modeling

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Abstract

In this study, a flexible strain sensor with ultrahigh stretchability, outstanding sensitivity, and excellent repeatability based on conductive carbon black (CB) and nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) was presented. Two organic solvents with three different coating time during the dissolve-coating process were investigated. The morphology and the degradation temperature of all the NBR/CB composite films were studied, and the tensile strength, elongation at break, as well as the young’s modulus and the dissipated energy for all the specimen were revealed. The strain-sensing tests indicated that the NBR/CB film possess a good sensitivity (max. gauge factor = 24.9) and an ultrahigh sensing range (max. 681% strain). The mathematic model from Simmons for predicting the sensing behavior based on the tunneling theory was further simplified, and a novel equation was proposed for predicting the relative change of resistance as a function of time during the cyclic test, which showed great agreement with the cyclic strain-sensing data in experiments. Overall, this study introduces a simple low-cost fabrication method for preparing the polymeric flexible strain sensors with great strain-sensing performance. The development of the two mathematical modellings makes several noteworthy contributions to the existing knowledge of strain-sensing behavior.

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Funding

This study was funded by (a) The Science and Technology Planning Projects of Guangzhou, China (No.201905010007 and No.201803030041); (b) Emerging Talents Initiative (ETI) funding supported from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.

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Correspondence to Muchao Qu or Qun Gao.

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Qu, M., Qin, Y., Xu, W. et al. Electrically conductive NBR/CB flexible composite film for ultrastretchable strain sensors: fabrication and modeling. Appl Nanosci 11, 429–439 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01619-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01619-0

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