Highly conductive PEDOT:PSS treated by sodium dodecyl sulfate for stretchable fabric heaters

Abstract

In this study, the conductivity of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) was greatly enhanced by using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) without damaging the fabric substrates. We suggest that blending and dipping methods using SDS which is compatible with natural and synthetic fabrics dramatically increase the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS to as high as 1335 S cm⁻¹. Additionally, a highly stretchable fabric heater with high conductivity was successfully fabricated using SDS-modified PEDOT:PSS. The fabric heaters exhibited reversible electrical behaviour with cyclic loading of a tensile strain even larger than 80%. The increase in resistance with the tensile strain was significantly smaller than the calculated value for a rigid substrate because the fabrics with a weave structure exhibited interfibrillar contact effects with strain. For example, the resistance was increased by a factor of only 2.62 with 80% strain. The Joule heating behaviours of the fabric heaters were demonstrated at several different applied voltages and ambient temperatures, and the heat capacity and convective heat transfer coefficient were 2 J K⁻¹ and 30 W m⁻² K⁻¹, respectively. The results demonstrated that the method suggested in this work is not only efficient for greatly improving the conductivity but also simple and cost-effective for fabricating highly conductive and stretchable fabrics with various e-textile applications.