Melamine sponge skeleton loaded organic conductors for mechanical sensors with high sensitivity and high resolution

In recent years, due to the development of flexible electronics, flexible sensors have been widely concerned and applied in intelligent robots, brain-computer interfaces, and wearable electronic devices. In this paper, we propose a low-cost and high-efficiency sensor component preparation method. The sensor component tetrathiafulvalene-tetracyanoquinodimethane/melamine sponge (TTMS) takes a melamine sponge as a flexible substrate. And the sponge is metallized with the tetrathiafulvalene-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TTF-TCNQ) which is an organic conducting molecule to construct a conductive pathway. The physical load approach is used to ensure the advantages of low cost and efficient manufacturing. TTMS can withstand 8000 compression cycles which exhibits its good mechanical stability. And 1000 cycles of cyclic voltammetry scanning proved it also had good electrical stability. TTMS can distinguish pressure changes of 100 Pa and respond quickly to pressure application and release. The TTMS can be assembled to form an array of sensors that can distinguish the position and intensity of pressure. Therefore, the excellent performance of the sensor is expected to promote the commercial application of the piezoresistive sensor.