Design and Application of Leather Electronics

Fengwei Huo^*#

# Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLOFE), School of Flexible Electronics (Future Technologies), Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing Tech University

Abstract

Leather is a traditional natural material which permeates each and every aspect of our daily lives from the coats we wear, to the handbags we carry, and to the covers of books we read. Traditional leather industry recovers the flexibility of skin, while its sensing capability is still under deprivation, an important function of real skin. Leather, animal skins that have been treated with physical and chemical methods, inherits perfectly the sophisticated structure from the skin. Such unique hierarchical structure provides a guarantee for loading other functional materials, promising its potential to prepare high-performance flexible electronics. Based on the above, our group have been exploring the application of leather in flexible electronics by utilizing the advantages of leather such as the natural hierarchical structure, excellent biocompatibility and wearing comfort. Furthermore, the concept of “leather electronics” was proposed by our group when combining leather with various types of functional materials to develop pressure sensors, stress sensors, wearable light-emitting devices, heating devices, and color-changing devices with excellent performance. Those leather electronics re-endow leather with sensing capabilities to mimic or even outshine the performance of real skin. In particular, automotive flexible electronics are currently a research hotspot in our group in an effort to providing solutions for the intelligent automobile field. We dedicate to the investigation of flexible electronic materials and devices systems integration-intelligent realization of automotive cockpit for real-time monitoring of users’ health, cabin environment, etc., so as to realize intelligent human-computer interaction in the automotive cockpit. The preparation process of leather electronics is easy, universal and combinable with traditional leather treating technique, which is conducive to achieving low-cost mass production, and is anticipated to promote the industrialization of flexible electronics.

Figure 1: Leather electronics in pressure sensing, display and human-computer interface devices.

References

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[3] Xie, R.J.; Zhu, J.Y.; Wu, H.B.; Zhang, K.; Zou, B.H.; Zhang, X.Y.; Liang, J.Y.; Zheng, B.; Li, S.; Zhang, W.N.; Huang, W.; Wu, J.S.; Huo, F.W.: 3D-conductive Pathway Written on Leather for Highly Sensitive and Durable Electronic Whisker. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Vol. 8, No. 28, pp. 9748-9754, 2020.

[4] Xie, R.J.; Hou, S.S.; Chen, Y.Y.; Zhang, K.; Zou, B.H.; Liu, Y.H.; Liang, J.Y.; Guo, S.H.; Li, H.F.; Zheng, B.; Li, S.; Zhang, W.N.; Wu, J.S.; Huo, F.W.: Leather-based Strain Sensor with Hierarchical Structure for Motion Monitoring. Advanced Materials Technologies, Vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 1900442, 2019.