Superior Stable, Highly Efficient, and Anisotropic Electrothermal Composite Heater in Various Directions with Fast Response Based on Aligned Carbon Nanotube Sheets

Abstract

Flexible electrothermal heaters have a great potential for applications of warm‐keeping and thermotherapy. However, those common electrothermal heaters are so sensitive to strain that they are hard to resistant to deformation while still keeping the stable and outstanding electrothermal performance. Here, a flexible and elastic composite heater with a stable electrothermal property under varied strain with large deformation is developed by mimicking the wrinkle feature of human skin in a carbon nanotube (CNT)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) bilayered structure. The created wrinkle feature of CNT film from the resilience of PDMS makes the electrothermal heater a stable electrothermal performance within 30–40% strain in different directions. The aligned preference of CNTs in the CNT film gives the electrothermal heater an ability that shows different electrothermal performance depending on different angles between the direction of CNT alignment and the long axis of the sample. This composite electrothermal heater also presents a highly efficient electrothermal performance that can reach 200 °C within 30s upon 2 V.