Superhydrophobic E-textile with an Ag-EGaIn Conductive Layer for Motion Detection and Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

As as emerging innovation, electronic textiles have shown promising potential in health monitoring, energy harvesting, temperature regulation, and human–computer interactions. To access broader application scenarios, numerous e-textiles have been designed with a superhydrophobic surface to steer clear of interference from humidity or chemical decay. Nevertheless, even the cutting-edge electronic textiles (e-textiles) still have difficulty in realizing superior conductivity and satisfactory water repellency simultaneously. Herein, a facile and efficient approach to integrate a hierarchical elastic e-textile is proposed by electroless silver plating on GaIn alloy liquid metal coated textiles. The continuous uneven surface of AgNPs and deposition of FAS-17 endow the textile with exceptional and robust superhydrophobic performance, in which the conductivity and the contact angle of the as-made textile could reach 2145 ± 122 S/cm and 161.5 ± 2.1°, respectively. On the basis of such excellent conductivity, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding function is excavated and the average shielding efficiency (SE) reaches about 87.56 dB within frequencies of 8.2–12.4 GHz. Furthermore, due to its high elasticity and low modulus, the textile can serve as a wearable strain sensor for motion detection, health monitoring, and underwater message transmission. This work provides a novel route to fabricate high-performance hydrophobic e-textiles, in which the encapsulation strategy could be referenced for the further development of conductive textiles.