Felice Torrisi | Imperial College London: How do we scale the formulation of stable, high-concentration 2D material inks beyond simple graphene?

Why do printed smart garments fail after a single wash cycle, and how does electrostatic chemistry solve this?

Integrating electronic nanomaterials directly onto textiles usually suffers from poor mechanical adhesion and catastrophic wash degradation. To bypass these limitations, a charge-driven assembly approach modifies standard fabrics with cationic chemistry to establish a permanent positive surface charge. This allows negatively charged graphene oxide sheets to electrostatically bind with high affinity to the textile fibers during printing.

Following the deposition step, a local hot-press thermal reduction process is applied to convert the graphene oxide layer into highly conductive reduced graphene oxide (rGO). This thermal-mechanical compression step locks the nanomaterial into the fiber matrix, preventing exfoliation during mechanical stress or water exposure.

This chemical modification and post-processing strategy yields highly conductive paths directly on cotton without requiring synthetic binders that impede breathability. The resulting smart textiles maintain stable electronic properties even after 20 commercial wash cycles, marking a massive leap forward for functional, consumer-ready e-textiles.

In this short video, you can learn:
* How cationic surface modification of cotton fibers establishes electrostatic binding sites for 2D materials.
* The role of hot-press thermal reduction in converting graphene oxide to conductive rGO on delicate fabrics.
* How to achieve washability up to 20 cycles in printable textile sensors without losing electrical performance.

📋 **Clip Abstract** This clip details a novel chemical modification process that utilizes electrostatic charging to secure graphene oxide onto cotton fibers. By combining cationic surface chemistry with thermal-mechanical reduction, the resulting smart textiles can survive repeated washing cycles while maintaining high electrical conductivity.

Can we build complex logic circuits directly on a cotton shirt without using a single silicon chip?

While flexible sensors are common, they typically rely on wire bonds to rigid silicon chips to process signals, creating severe mechanical mismatch and failure points at the interfaces. To eliminate rigid components entirely, fully printed field-effect transistors (FETs) are fabricated directly on textile surfaces. This monolithic integration utilizes graphene for the active channels and electrodes, alongside hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) as a highly stable, printed dielectric layer.

By precisely pattern-printing these two-dimensional inks, multiple active components can be interconnected to create basic logic elements. The speaker showcases the successful fabrication of printed electronic inverters, which use N-type and P-type FETs to achieve signal inversion directly within the textile matrix.

This research is now expanding to include transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors like molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) to enable high-performance complementary logic. This represents a paradigm shift where the fabric itself acts as the computer, moving the industry closer to truly invisible, robust, and stretchable computing garments.

In this short video, you can learn:
* The layer-by-layer stack architecture of a printed 2D field-effect transistor (FET) directly on fabric.
* Why hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is used as a reliable dielectric layer in printed textile logic.
* The path toward complementary logic on textiles using transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors.

📋 **Clip Abstract** The speaker demonstrates the fabrication of fully printed, textile-based field-effect transistors and inverters without any rigid electronic interfaces. By utilizing graphene, h-BN, and semiconducting TMDs, the team created functioning monolithic logic elements directly on stretchable garments.