Assembly of graphene oxide on cotton fiber through dyeing and their properties

Materials with electrical conductivity are preferred for electronics, medical, space and other applications. Flexible, stretchable and washable conductive fabrics have been preferred over metallic materials. However, the currently available conductive fabrics are mainly made using a dip-drying process which makes it difficult to obtain a regular assembly structure of graphene sheets on the fibers. In this research, we report the development of conductive cotton fabrics through simple dyeing, graphene oxide (GO) with two distinct sizes was used to dye the fabrics which were later reduced using hydrazine hydrate. The regularity of graphene sheets on the surface of the cotton fiber can be improved by level assembly, it is beneficial to the conductive stability of the later drawing, bending and friction process. The results show that, the fabrics coated with graphene had excellent fastness to washing, friction and bending. After 20 washings and exposure to 2000 rubbing and 1000 bending cycles, the fabrics had excellent conductivity retention of 86%, 55% and 99%, respectively. In addition, the introduction of graphene causes the dyed fabric to have good infrared absorption and excellent UV resistance. Using cotton fabrics and GO to impart conductivity and UV resistance would be an affordable, sustainable and novel approach to develop functionalized materials for various applications.