Porous reduced graphene oxide@multi-walled carbon nanotubes/polydimethylsiloxane piezoresistive pressure sensor for human motion detection

With the rapid development of wearable electronic, smart robot and health monitoring, there is a growing focus on flexible piezoresistive pressure sensors. Herein, a new strategy is proposed to prepare flexible piezoresistive pressure sensor with porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge as matrix and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for the construction of dual-conductive network. The sensor exhibited excellent overall sensing performances (pressure detection range of 0–200 kPa, sensitivity of 1.62 kPa⁻¹ in 0–29 kPa and 0.41 kPa⁻¹ in 29–65 kPa, response/recovery time of 61/40 ms and 22,000 loading-unloading cycles at 0–15 % compressive strain). Meanwhile, the sensor was able to normally work in the range of 30–100 °C and affected little by temperature. In addition, the sensor was successfully applied for detecting various human motions as well as music recognition and identification. The piezoresistive pressure sensor has great application prospect in wearable devices, health monitoring, and human-machine interaction.