In this paper, the surface area of coated polymer-based textiles, i.e., copper and nickel plated woven polyester fabric, copper and acrylic coated woven polyester fabric, and copper and acrylic coated non-woven polyamide fabric, is investigated. In order to evaluate the surface area of the woven fabrics, Peirce's geometrical model of the interlacing point and measurement using an electron microscope are used. Non-woven fabrics are evaluated using an optical method, handmade method, and MATLAB functions. An electrochemical method, based on the measurement of the resistance between two electrodes, is used for relative comparison of the effective surface area of the coated woven and non-woven fabrics. The experimental results show that the measured and calculated warp lengths do not differ within the standard deviation. The model for the surface area evaluation of the Pierce's geometrical model for monofilament (non-fibrous) yarns is extended to multifilament yarns and to a uniform sample size. The experimental results show the increasing trend of surface area evaluation using both modeling and electrochemical methods, i.e., the surface area of the copper and acrylic coated woven Polyester fabric (PES) is the smallest surface area of investigated samples, followed by the surface area of the copper and acrylic coated non-woven fabric, and by copper and nickel plated woven PES fabric. These methods can be used for surface area evaluation of coated polymer-based textiles in the development of supercapacitors, electrochemical cells, or electrochemical catalysts.
Keywords: electrically conductive textiles; polymers; smart textiles; surface area evaluation.