Conductive reduced graphene oxide/MnO₂ carbonized cotton fabrics with enhanced electro -chemical, -heating, and -mechanical properties

Versatile and ductile conductive carbonized cotton fabrics decorated with reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/manganese dioxide (MnO₂) are prepared in this paper. In order to endow multifunction to cotton fabric, graphene oxide (GO) is deposited on cotton fibers by simple dip-coating route. MnO₂ nanoparticles are assembled on the surface of cotton fabric through in-situ chemical solution deposition. MnO₂/GO@cotton fabrics are carbonized to achieve conductive fabric (MnO₂/rGO@C). The morphologies and structures of obtained fabrics are characterized by SEM, XRD, ICP and element analysis, and their electro-properties including electro-chemical, electro-heating and electro-mechanical properties are evaluated. The MnO₂/rGO@C yields remarkable specific capacitance of 329.4 mA h/g at the current density of 100 mA/g, which is more than 40% higher than that of the control carbonized cotton fabric (231 mA h/g). Regarding electro-heating properties, the temperature of MnO₂/rGO@C fabric could be monotonically increased to the steady-state maximum temperatures (ΔT_max) of 36 °C within 5 min under the applied voltage 15 V while the ΔT_max = 17 °C of the control case. In addition, MnO₂/rGO@C exhibits repeatable electro-mechanical properties and its normalized resistance (R−R₀)/R₀ could reach 0.78 at a constant strain (curvature = 0.6 cm⁻¹). The MnO₂/rGO@C fabric is versatile, scalable, and adaptable to a wide variety of smart textiles applications.