*Article* **Nano Carbon Black-Based High Performance Wearable Pressure Sensors**

#### **Junsong Hu 1,2, Junsheng Yu 1, Ying Li 2,\*, Xiaoqing Liao 2, Xingwu Yan 2 and Lu Li 2,\***


Received: 26 February 2020; Accepted: 28 March 2020; Published: 2 April 2020

**Abstract:** The reasonable design pattern of flexible pressure sensors with excellent performance and prominent features including high sensitivity and a relatively wide workable linear range has attracted significant attention owing to their potential application in the advanced wearable electronics and artificial intelligence fields. Herein, nano carbon black from kerosene soot, an atmospheric pollutant generated during the insu fficient burning of hydrocarbon fuels, was utilized as the conductive material with a bottom interdigitated textile electrode screen printed using silver paste to construct a piezoresistive pressure sensor with prominent performance. Owing to the distinct loose porous structure, the lumpy surface roughness of the fabric electrodes, and the softness of polydimethylsiloxane, the piezoresistive pressure sensor exhibited superior detection performance, including high sensitivity (31.63 kPa−<sup>1</sup> within the range of 0–2 kPa), a relatively large feasible range (0–15 kPa), a low detection limit (2.26 pa), and a rapid response time (15 ms). Thus, these sensors act as outstanding candidates for detecting the human physiological signal and large-scale limb movement, showing their broad range of application prospects in the advanced wearable electronics field.

**Keywords:** nano carbon black; polydimethylsiloxane; pressure sensors; wearable electronics
