Magnetic field-induced self-assembly of chemically modified graphene oxide on cellulose fabrics for the fabrication of flexible conductive devices

Abstract In this present study, we have successfully fabricated the cellulose fabric with excellent electrical conductivity by depositing the graphene oxide grafted with the modified ferroferric oxide (GOF) upon fabric substrate via layer-by-layer magnetic-field-induced self-assembly apporoach and followed by chemical reduction. The results indicated that the morphologies of graphene oxide nanosheets for three-layer deposited fabrics could form the highly oriented wrinkled structures, which resulted from the synergistic interactions of magnetic induction force on magnetic doublet, hydrogen bonds and van der Waals. The volume resistivity of the three-layer deposited fabric could reach to 64.8 Ω cm compared with that of pure RGO-coated viscose fabrics (137.94 Ω cm) in the previous work, which could be favorable for improving the electrical conductivity and decreasing the graphene oxide consumption. Furthermore, the three-layer deposited fabric possessed excellent washing durability even after twelve times water laundering. Our results suggested that the flexible GOF-coated fabric had great potential in conductive devices for wearable electronics, strain sensors, smart actuators and bioelectrodes and so on.