Abstract:Inspired by the dyeing processes, a highly elastic and conductive transition metal carbide/nitride (MXene) modified rib knitting fabric was prepared via a scalable roll-to-roll technology. Characterizations on the structure and performance of composite fabrics were conducted through SEM, resistance measurement, sensing performance testing. The results show that MXene modified rib knitting fabric has good elasticity and elastic recovery, and the MXene loading in the composite fabric increased with roll-to-roll cycles. On the contrary, the electrical resistance decreased with roll-to-roll cycles, and the minimum sheet resistance can be low as 38.3 Ω/?. The strain sensing performance test of the composite fabrics show that the MXene modified rib knitting fabric exhibit anisotropic strain sensing performance, and the strain sensing performance in course direction was better than that in the wale direction. In addition, the maximum gauge factor and sensing range were 72.8 and 0~160%, respectively, which were higher than those in wale direction (gauge factor: 4.4, sensing range: 0~24%). More importantly, the MXene modified rib knitting fabric exhibited superior sensing performance than the majority of reported woven and knitted fabric-based strain sensors, and can be used as a wearable flexible strain sensor to monitor various movements of the human body, demonstrating great potential in the field of intelligent wearable applications.