Twist-Spinning Assembly\nof Ultrathick and Robust Carbon\nNanotube Yarns for Electrothermal Textile Application

Carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns have attracted tremendous\ninterest\ndue to their huge potential in building advanced textiles; nevertheless,\ntheir thin diameter had hindered widespread adoption. To track the\nissues, in this article, a CNT film (a thickness of 17.75 μm)\nwith entangled CNT bundles was twisted into a continuous CNT yarn\nwith ultrathick diameter through a one-step twist-spinning procedure.\nThe morphological transformation from a CNT film to a CNT yarn, the\nrelationship between critical twist-spinning parameters, and the mechanical/electrical\nperformances of the CNT yarns were investigated. The results showed\nthat the twist-spinning procedure facilitated a shrinking effect,\nthereby promoting the uniform diameter and dense internal microstructure.\nEspecially, Y-900 (a CNT yarn with a twist degree of 900 turns per\nmeter) demonstrated an ultrathick and uniform diameter of 191.7 μm;\nmoreover, its microstructure was densified. The superiority could\neffectively promote high-interface interactions and more conductive\npathways between CNT bundles. Thus, the strength and conductivity\nof Y-900 are achieved to be 134.15 MPa and 602.12 S/cm, respectively.\nIn addition, Y-900 demonstrated excellent stability when suffering\ncyclic bending deformation and friction deformation. Based on the\nabove advantages, Y-900 was used for weaving fabric and further electrothermal\ntextile application. This work provided insights into further multifunctional\napplications for the CNT yarns as textile materials.