Multifunctional pressure/temperature/bending sensor made of carbon fibre-multiwall carbon nanotubes for artificial electronic application

• A simple and low-cost method to fabricate porous carbon fibers (CFs)-multi wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) composite sensor with excellent pressure/temperature/bending multifunctional properties and high mechanical properties was proposed. • The prepared sensors are successfully applied to monitor various human movements, including human joint activity, gesture translation, and finger touch. • The 4×5 CFs-MWCNTs sensor array also has great pressure and temperature sensing properties, demonstrating its potential applications in multifunctional wearable electronics. A flexible sensor with excellent pressure, temperature, and bending sensitivity is fabricated based on the conductive skeleton material with hierarchical porous structure. The conductive skeleton material is composed of carbon fibres (CFs) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), in which lay perpendicular to each other CFs are used as conductive frames, while MWCNTs are served as bridges to connect the CFs and increase the conductive network formation. Owing to the unique structure and the conductive materials, the as-prepared sensor exhibits a high-pressure sensing performance of 42.7 kPa (0–1 kPa), fast response, relaxation times of less than 100 ms, wide working range of 0–60 kPa, and high stability over more than 6000 cycles. Furthermore, the fabricated sensor presents a high thermal sensitivity of 2.46 °C −1 between 30 and 40 °C, excellent bending sensitivity of 95.5% rad -1 in the working range of 0–180°, and great flexibility (over 1000 cycles), demonstrating its potential applications in multifunctional wearable electronics.