ABSTRACT
Highly reliable Pt coating on silk textile was practiced by supercritical carbon dioxide-promoted electroless plating in this study. Electroless plating, which can metallize non-conductive polymer substrates with a thin metal or alloy layer, is utilized for the functionalization of polymers due to the requirement of electrical conductivity in the wearable device applications. For applications in wearable devices, making the devices user-friendly and biocompatible are the critical issues since there are frequent interaction between the device and human body. Electrical resistances of the as-metallized and the adhesive test-treated silk–Pt composites as a function of the metallization time are revealed. The closely packed and smooth Pt coating prepared by the supercritical carbon dioxide (sc-CO2)-assisted metallization method allows the Pt layer to stay intact after the second adhesive test and shows better resistance against the adhesive tests than those prepared without utilizing sc-CO2.