pH tunable multifunctional cotton fabric with GO-PANI-Ag composite coating

In recent years, wearable smart textiles with multifunctional properties have attracted great interest for use with a wide range of applications, including personal protection, sport, healthcare etc. In the present study, all-in-one multifunctional conductive hydrophobic coated cotton fabric with electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, joule heating, and antibacterial properties was prepared via in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization. A graphene oxide (GO)–polyaniline (PANI)–silver (Ag) composite was coated onto the cotton fabric, exhibiting a low electrical resistance of 24.3 Ω sq⁻¹ and strong hydrophobicity, with a water contact angle of ~ 139°. The high electrical conductivity of the composite coating resulted in excellent EMI shielding of ~ 52 dB in the X-band frequency region. Notably, the EMI shielding performance was tunable by simply changing the pH due to the acid- and alkali-sensitive nature of PANI. Furthermore, the fabricated conductive cotton fabric demonstrated excellent joule heating, achieving a temperature of 105.7 °C within 30 s at a voltage of 3.5 V. Additionally, in the presence of Ag, the cotton fabric exhibited excellent anti-bacterial properties against both Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria.