The presented review summarizes recent studies in the field of electro conductive textiles as an essential part of lightweight and flexible textile-based electronics (so called e-textiles), with the main focus on a relatively simple and low-cost dip-coating technique that can easily be integrated into an existing textile finishing plant. Herein, numerous electro conductive compounds are discussed, including intrinsically conductive polymers, carbon-based materials, metal, and metal-based nanomaterials, as well as their combinations, with their advantages and drawbacks in contributing to the sectors of healthcare, military, security, fitness, entertainment, environmental, and fashion, for applications such as energy harvesting, energy storage, real-time health and human motion monitoring, personal thermal management, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) shielding, wireless communication, light emitting, tracking, etc. The greatest challenge is related to the wash and wear durability of the conductive compounds and their unreduced performance during the textiles’ lifetimes, which includes the action of water, high temperature, detergents, mechanical forces, repeated bending, rubbing, sweat, etc. Besides electrical conductivity, the applied compounds also influence the physical-mechanical, optical, morphological, and comfort properties of textiles, depending on the type and concentration of the compound, the number of applied layers, the process parameters, as well as additional protective coatings. Finally, the sustainability and end-of-life of e-textiles are critically discussed in terms of the circular economy and eco-design, since these aspects are mainly neglected, although e-textile’ waste could become a huge problem in the future when their mass production starts.

The rapid growth in wearable technology has recently stimulated the development of conductive textiles for broad application purposes, i.e., wearable electronics, heat generators, sensors, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, optoelectronic and photonics. Textile material, which was always considered just as the interface between the wearer and the environment, now plays a more active role in different sectors, such as sport, healthcare, security, entertainment, military, and technical sectors, etc. This expansion in applied development of e-textiles is governed by a vast amount of research work conducted by increasingly interdisciplinary teams and presented systematic review highlights and assesses, in a comprehensive manner, recent research in the field of conductive textiles and their potential application for wearable electronics (so called e-textiles), as well as development of advanced application techniques to obtain conductivity, with emphasis on metal-containing coatings. Furthermore, an overview of protective compounds was provided, which are suitable for the protection of metallized textile surfaces against corrosion, mechanical forces, abrasion, and other external factors, influencing negatively on the adhesion and durability of the conductive layers during textiles’ lifetime (wear and care). The challenges, drawbacks and further opportunities in these fields are also discussed critically.

In the present study, cotton (Co) and polyester (PES) fabrics were screen-printed with a conductive poly3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene:polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) printing paste along with a commercially-available screen-printing binder (SFXC) or waterborne polyurethane resin (WPU), in order to enhance wash and wear durability, and to improve some functional properties, without essentially influencing the physical–mechanical properties of the base material, as well as the introduced fabrics’ conductivity. The application of a conductive polymer coating reduced transmittance in the whole UV region drastically, indicating good UV-shielding ability in the treated fabrics. Moreover, the employed binders improved the fabrics’ protection against harmful solar UV radiation significantly, depending on the type of fibre and binder. Furthermore, the SFXC binder intensified the hydrophobicity of Co as compared to the WPU binder, and, on the other hand, WPU reduced the hydrophobicity of PES. Finally, the screen-printed fabrics were washed up to 20 cycles and rubbed up to 20,000 cycles, and characterised by means of mass loss determination and electrical resistivity measurement. Both binders enlarged polymer stability against the effect of washing and rubbing, depending on the number of cycles, the type and amount of employed binder, the type of fibres, and the thickness and uniformity of coatings.