Pressure sensors have been widely used in electronic wearable devices and medical devices to detect tiny physical movements and mechanical deformation. However, it remains a challenge to fabricate desirable, comfortable wearing, and highly sensitive as well as fast responsive sensors to capture human body physiological signs. Here, a new capacitive flexible pressure sensor that is likely to solve this problem was constructed using thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer rubber (TPU) electrospinning nanofiber membranes as a stretchable substrate with the incorporation of silver nanowires (AgNWs) to build a composite dielectric layer. In addition, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were painted on the TPU membranes as flexible electrodes by screen printing to maintain the flexibility and breathability of the sensors. The flexible pressure sensor could detect tiny body signs; fairly small physical presses and mechanical deformation based on the variation in capacitance due to the synergistic effects of microstructure and easily altered composite permittivity of AgNW/TPU composite dielectric layers. The resultant sensors exhibited high sensitivity (7.24 kPa−1 within the range of 9.0 × 10−3 ~ 0.98 kPa), low detection limit (9.24 Pa), and remarkable breathability as well as fast responsiveness (<55 ms). Moreover, both continuously pressing/releasing cycle over 1000 s and bending over 1000 times did not impair the sensitivity, stability, and durability of this flexible pressure sensor. This proposed strategy combining the elastomer nanofiber membrane and AgNW dopant demonstrates a cost-effective and scalable fabrication of capacitive pressure sensors as a promising application in electronic skins and wearable devices.
A novel kind of cyanuric-acid-modified graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)/kaolinite (m-CN/KA) composite with enhanced visible light-driven photocatalytic performance was fabricated through a facile two-step process. Rhodamine B (RhB) was taken as the target pollutant to study the photocatalytic performance of the synthesized catalysts. It is indicated that the cyanuric acid modification significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light illumination in comparison with the other reference samples. The apparent rate constant of m-CN/KA is almost 1.9 times and 4.0 times those of g-C3N4/kaolinite and bare g-C3N4, respectively. The superior photocatalytic performance of m-CN/KA could be ascribed, not only to the generation of abundant pore structure and reactive sites, but also to the efficient separation of the photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Furthermore, the possible photocatalytic degradation mechanism of m-CN/KA was also presented in this paper. It could be anticipated that this novel and efficient, metal-free, mineral-based photocatalytic composite has great application prospects in organic pollutant degradation.