With the rapid growth of electronic textiles, there is a need for highly conductive fabrics containing fewer conductive materials, allowing them to maintain flexibility, low cost and light weight. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), is one of the most promising conductive materials for the production of conductive fabrics due to its excellent properties such as solubility, relatively high conductivity, and market availability. Moreover, its electrical conductivity can be enhanced by polar solvents or acid treatment. The aim of this work was to fabricate conductive cotton fabrics with a small fixed amount of PEDOT:PSS and to investigate how titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles affect the electrical, thermal and structural properties of PEDOT:PSS-coated cotton fabrics. The change in electrical conductivity of the nanocomposite fabric was then related to morphological analysis by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. We found that the sheet resistance of the nanocomposite cotton fabric depends on the TiO2 concentration, with a minimum value of 2.68 Ω/□ at 2.92 wt% TiO2. The effect of UV light on the sheet resistance of the nanocomposite cotton fabric was also investigated; we found that UV irradiation leads to an increase in conductivity at an irradiation time of 10 min, after which the conductivity decreases with increasing irradiation time. In addition, the electrical behavior of the nanocomposite cotton fabric as a function of temperature was investigated. The nanocomposite fabrics exhibited metallic behavior at high-TiO2 concentrations of 40.20 wt% and metallic semiconducting behavior at low and medium concentrations of 11.33 and 28.50 wt%, respectively. Interestingly, cotton fabrics coated with nanocomposite possessed excellent washing durability even after seven steam washes.
Keywords: PEDOT:PSS; TiO2; conductive cotton; metallic; nanocomposite; steam washing.