SBIR Phase I: Vapor Deposition for Non-Metallic Conductive Yarns

Soliyarn, Llc, Belmont MA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop the next generation of wearables. Applications include heated garments, biosensors, textile supercapacitors, and textile energy harvesters. Other conductive yarns that exist to date are either non-textile (metal) or heavily-modified-textile materials (carbon fibers, metal-doped and metal-plated fibers, carbon nanotube-doped yarns, conductive ink-dipped yarns) that often do not look, feel, or behave like conventional textile materials. This project will deliver launderable, mechanically-rugged, encapsulated conductive yarns that can be seamlessly incorporated into garments and other functional textiles. These yarns are unaffected by strains such as movement, stretching, bending, and physical wear in a garment. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project develops conformal, uniform, and robust textiles based on conductive yarns using a process of oxidative chemical vapor deposition. The project uses the conductive flexible polymers to form coatings in the vapor phase under low vacuum. The vapor allows for high conformality to the yarn's rough surface and uniform layer thickness across the circumference, both due to the mean free path of the monomers and oligomers after reaching the yarn surface during deposition. The low vacuum environment can be used to tune these parameters to improve polymerization in the lateral direction, rather than outward from the surface, as occurs in other processes. In turn, the coatings' conformality and uniformity leaves the yarn largely unaffected only marginally impacts its weight. Furthermore, with the vapor phase reaction, the process offers excellent chemical and physical adhesion unparalleled even with solution methods, as observed by conductivity unaffected by many wash cycles and significant wear. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.