Facile Preparation of a Wet-Laid Based Graphite Nanoplate and Polyethylene Terephthalate Staple Fiber Composite for Textile-Structured Rollable Electronics

Rollable and flexile electronics, especially textile-structured batteries and solar cells, are in high demand. Therefore, the wet-laid process for producing nonwoven textiles has gained much interest because of its processing ease and scalability for production. A unique electrically conductive nonwoven material, developed based on a scalable composite of graphite nanoplates and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) staple fibers, is proposed for textile-structured rollable electronics in this work. To optimize the proposed structure, PET and graphite composites are designed by decorating the surface of the PET nonwoven material with graphite nanoplates to enhance its electrical performance and electron pathways, and for this purpose different weight percentages of graphite fillers were incorporated into the PET fibrous matrix. The proposed graphite-PET nonwoven composites show excellent electrical and thermal conductivities, suitable flexibility for electrical devices and the potential for use in wearable devices. The results prove that the proposed unique conductive nonwoven material and its performance can be promising for next-generation rollable e-textiles.