Optimization of the Conductance of Graphene-ink-coated Fabric used for Wearable Electronics Application

Abstract

Grapheme Conductive Ink is used mainly for coating on fabrics and other substrates to develop conductive fabrics which can find applications in many wearable electronics applications. In this research, graphene material properties and conductive behavior of graphene coated and surface modified polyester fabrics is analyzed and discussed. Box –Behnken type of experimental design is used in this study which is applied in circumstances when the number of experimental runs is limited and the predictions are to be of higher order. This design consists of 3 nodes which is a 2nd order fitted equation. The Independent variables used in this study are Concentration of graphene ink (0.05-0.10gm), Surface area (1-3 Sq cm), and Coating thickness (0.55-1mm). To develop and generate BoxBehnken design, Minitab software is used. The Minitab B&B design is based on quadratic equations of second order. The ANOVA and model summary show that concentration of graphene ink (gm) and coating thickness directly influence the conductivity levels of coated material (p<0.05). However, in the optimization part, the goal was to maximize theb response and formulations of conc. of graphene ink coating (gm) (0.1gm) and surface area (3 sq.cm) and coating thickness (1 mm) predicted
conductivity of 3.9425 Siemens/cm with a composite desirability value of1 showing the case as ideal one. The model accuracy showed R2 value of 99.58 %. Box and Behnken design performed well in this study. Sensor test using Arduino integration and Led was tested and showed good results for coated fabrics.