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Compressible and sensitive aerogels derived from graphene/waste paper for wearable pressure sensor

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Abstract

Biomass-derived 3D and porous conductive aerogels have been considered as potential environmentally friendly material for wearable pressure sensors. However, the development of a simple strategy for the fabrication of biomass-derived aerogels with the properties of wide-sensing range, high sensitivity, and low detection is still significantly challenging. Here, graphene was incorporated into waste paper to prepare graphene-coated waste paper aerogel (GWA) using a simple “filtration-oven drying” method under atmospheric pressure. The GWA was further annealed to obtain carbonized graphene-coated waste paper aerogel (C-GWA) for low density and excellent resilience. The C-GWA shows 3D porous structure formed by interpenetrated fibers and low density (25 mg/cm3). The pressure sensor based on C-GWA exhibits wide detection working range (0–132 kPa), ultra-low detection limit (2.5 Pa), and high sensitivity of (31.6 kPa−1). In addition, the pressure sensor can be used to detect human motions including the pulse of the human body, cheek blowing, and bending of human joints. The result indicates that the C-GWA-based sensor shows great potential for wearable electronic products.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2021YFG0249), Cooperation Project between Sichuan University and Yibin City (2019CDYB-29), The National Natural Science Foundation of China and The Civil Aviation Administration of China (No. U1833118), and Engineering characteristic team of Sichuan University (2020SCUNG122).

Funding

Funding was provided by Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant Number 2021YFG0249), Cooperation Project between Sichuan University and Yibin City (Grant Number 2019CDYB-29), The National Natural Science Foundation of China and The Civil Aviation Administration of China (Grant Number U1833118), and Engineering characteristic team of Sichuan University (Grant Number 2020SCUNG122).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Ang Li, Ce Cui, Weijie Wang, Yue Zhang, Jianyu Zhai, Ronghui Guo, Erhui Ren, Hongyan **ao, Mi Zhou & **wei Zhang

  2. Yibin Industrial Technology Research Institute of Sichuan University, Yibin, China

    Ang Li, Ce Cui, Weijie Wang, Yue Zhang, Jianyu Zhai, Ronghui Guo, Erhui Ren & Hongyan **ao

  3. School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Cheng Cheng

  4. Aviation Engineering Institute, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan, China

    Wenfeng Qin

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  1. Ang Li
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  2. Ce Cui
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  12. **wei Zhang
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Contributions

AL: conceptualization, writing—original draft, and visualization. CC: visualization. WW: formal analysis. YZ: validation. JZ: methodology. RG: writing—review and editing and supervision. CC: project administration. WQ and ER: software. HX: resources. MZ and JZ: investigation.

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Correspondence to Ronghui Guo.

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Li, A., Cui, C., Wang, W. et al. Compressible and sensitive aerogels derived from graphene/waste paper for wearable pressure sensor. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 4388–4399 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-07631-6

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