All Organic, Conductive Nanofibrous Twisted Yarns

The field of smart textiles is becoming a promising approach in wearable technologies where electronic properties are incorporated into fibers rather than connecting electronic components to apparel products. This research was aimed on achieving conductivity by blending in a conductive polymer with a carrier polymer to produce nanofibrous yarns using electrospinning. Camphor sulfonic acid doped polyaniline (PANi-CSA) was blended with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) to produce aligned nanofibrous webs. Then fiber stripes were twisted in the S direction to obtain twisted yarns having a twist level of 2 twists per millimeter (tpmm). The twisted single yarns were utilized to prepare plied yarns. The fiber morphology and electrical properties were studied by varying the number of plies. Highest resistance value was obtained for single ply yarn (13 M/cm) and resistance seemed to decrease with the number of plies. In addition, a continuous nanofibrous yarn production set up was developed to prepare continuous twisted PAN/PANi nanofibrous yarns. Material properties of the twisted yarns were observed as a function of post processing conditions such as stretching and annealing. It is envisaged that this research would lead to the continuous production of all organic, conductive nanofibrous yarns with potential applications in smart textile such as 3D woven or knitted tissue scaffolds, pH sensors and electrical heating elements.