Regenerating leather waste for flexible pressure sensing applications

Abstract Pressure sensor can be applied in a wide range of fields, such as voice recognition, human motions detection and artificial electronic skin, the sensing of which is greatly influenced by the flexibility and stretchability of substrate materials. Here, based on the piezoresistive effect, new kinds of flexible pressure sensors have been realized from a pair of flexible and biocompatible collagen films: one is coated by silver nanowires (Ag NWs) and the other by interdigital electrode, respectively. The collagen films are regenerated from leather waste and could bring economic benefits to society. The prepared pressure sensors are applied for voice recognition and human motion detection. Graphical abstract A flexible pressure sensor based on two layers of regenerated collagen films coated silver nanowires (Ag NWs) and interdigital electrodes respectively are obtained. The flexible collagen films are prepared by dissolving leather waste into ionic liquid, [BMIM]Cl. The fabricated pressure sensor displays potential applications in voice recognition and human physical motion detection, such as finger and wrist bending-releasing, which are expected to access the training data of athletes, monitor some physical activities of patients synchronously and act as a voice recognition device.