Characterization of highly linear stretchable sensor made of Gr-PEDOT:PSS/MnO2 nanowires/Ecoflex composite

This paper proposes a nanocomposite strategy for fabricating ultra-stretchable strain sensors using graphene/poly 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene:poly styrene sulfonate (Gr-PEDOT:PSS) and manganese oxide nanowires (MnO2 NWs). The sensor response pertaining to different concentrations of MnO2 NWs in the composite was experimentally analysed. Owing to the MnO2 NWs reinforcement, the sensor exhibited a single and highly linear region response over a wide strain range of 0 % to 320 %, with a mean gauge factor of 0.8 when the MnO2 NW concentration was 0.25 % w/v. Moreover, the response time was quite short (79 ms), and an extremely low level of hysteresis behaviour was observed, even in a high strain regime. The sensor showed a highly stable and repeatable response over 5000 stretch and relax cycles. The results demonstrated that the proposed sensor can be applied for human motion detection in scenarios involving large deformation.