Development of conductive polymers as potential sensor material for Wearable Electronics

Ahsan, Mominul, Haider, Julfikar ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7010-8285 and Hashmi, Saleem (2023) Development of conductive polymers as potential sensor material for Wearable Electronics. In: Encyclopedia of Materials: Electronics. Elsevier. ISBN 9780128197288 (hardback)

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Abstract

Miniaturization of modern electronic devices, development of fabric and sensor materials and the integration of miniature device/sensor with the fabric helps the emergence of smart wearable technologies. The wearable systems are becoming more popular due to the rapid development of modern electronic materials and the manufacturers are trying to meet new requirements of the electronic devices including low weight, small size, flexibility, extreme production power, nonstop great production ability, relaxed integration with or within the clothing fabrication procedures. However, challenges are still remained to solve such as the washability features that needs to be merged into e-textiles to carry market gains in various applications, including sports and healthcare where the people can easily wear as normal daily clothes. Conventional electronic materials are not fully capable of efficiently meeting the washability requirement due to their rigidity and bulkiness. Still, several technical and nontechnical issues of the materials are required to be addressed. Conducting polymer is one of the important electronic materials which is continuously being developed driven by the emerging innovations in sensor and textile materials, nanotechnology, etc to overcome the challenge. This chapter presents the fundamental background of the conducting polymers, and presents their technological development with some recent applications. Challenges and future development opportunities are also critically discussed.