Conducting Leathers for Smart Product Applications

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• 作者：Jima Demisie Wegene ; Palanisamy Thanikaivelan
• 刊名：Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：November 26, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：53
• 期：47
• 页码：18209-18215
• 全文大小：389K
• ISSN：1520-5045

文摘

Leather is a unique consumer material possessing a variety of properties such as strength, viscoelasticity, flexibility, and longevity. However, the use of leather for smart product applications is a challenge since it is an electrically insulating material. Here, we report a simple method to produce conducting leathers using an in situ polymerization of pyrrole. The concentrations of pyrrole, ferric chloride, and anthraquinone sulfonic acid and the number of polymerization were optimized to produce maximum conductivity in the treated leathers. The coating of polypyrrole in the treated leathers was probed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopic analysis. We also show that the treated leathers are black through reflectance measurements, thereby suggesting that the use of toxic and expensive dyes can be avoided for coloration process. We further demonstrate that the treated leathers, with a maximum conductivity of 7.4 S/cm, can be used for making conductive gloves for operating touch-screen devices apart from other smart product applications.