Environmentally Stable, Highly Conductive, and Mechanically Robust Metallized Textiles

Textile-based wearable electronics, integrating the functions of electronics into the daily textiles, offers a comfortable interaction between humans and electronic devices. Production of highly conductive and environmentally stable textiles is the precondition for the ultimate wearable electronic system. However, due to the complicated porous structure, it is still technically challenging to endow textiles with desirable conductivity and stability, especially in the case of stretchable fabrics. Herein, we report a facile but effective fabrication strategy combining the electroless deposition and electrodeposition techniques for the metallization of stretchable knitted fabrics. The electroless deposition process first introduces a thin metal layer and yields electrically conductive fabrics. The subsequent electrodeposited metals conformally coat on individual fibers of fabrics, which significantly improves the electrical conductivity, mechanical durability, and environmental stability of metallized textiles. Remarkably, the sheet resistance of metallized textiles reaches less than 0.02 Ω sq–1 and remains relatively stable under more than 400% tensile strain. More importantly, the metallized stretchable fabrics exhibit superior stability when monitored in varied environments for 30 days, further promoting their practical uses in wearable electronics. Finally, a wearable heater and a strain sensor are demonstrated to show potential applications of metallized textiles for personal healthcare and human motion monitoring.