Fabrication of Chromatic Electronic Textiles Synthesized by Conducting Polymer

Most of the electronic textiles (e-textiles) were fabricated by carbon-based materials such as graphene, carbon nanotube (CNT), and hybrids of graphene and CNTs due to their high electrical conductivity, flexibility, and good stability. However, it is difficult to synthesize a colored e-textiles because the carbon-based e-textiles have only a black color. In this study, we produced the chromatic e-textiles synthesized with different conductive polymer such as polyaniline, polythiophene, and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate). The chromatic e-textiles were simply fabricated by soaking commercial cotton into an aqueous conductive polymer solution. The chromatic e-textiles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The electrical conductivity of the chromatic e-textiles was the order of 10⁻³ S/cm, which was maintained even under bending.