Flexible temperature sensor based on RGO/CNTs@PBT melting blown nonwoven fabric

The flexible smart wearable device with low cost and high performance is highly desired but rather challenging. In this work, a wearable temperature sensor was developed by integrating the polybutylene terephthalate melt-blown nonwoven fabric (PBT NW) with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) via a simple mechanical ultrasonication method. The microstructures of the rGO/[email protected] NW sensor were investigated by FT-IR, XRD, and SEM techniques, and the thermal and mechanical properties of this sensor were systematically analyzed. The conductive rGO and CNTs could be tightly fixed to the surface of PBT NW. Compared with original PBT NW, the tensile properties of rGO/[email protected] NW sensor were improved. The results of sensing performance tests showed that the prepared temperature sensor had high sensitivity (−0.737% °C−1) and linearity (R2 =0.98) with a resolution of 0.1 °C between 25 °C and 45 °C, a long-term stability and good circularity indicating that our sensor can meet the monitoring requirement of real-time human body temperature. In addition, this sensor could also be used to monitor human respiratory rate. Our study may provide a new idea for the fabrication of the flexible temperature sensor with nonwoven substratefor monitoring the human body and environment temperature.