Conductive Nanocomposite Cotton Thread Strands for Wire and Industrial Applications NUJUD MOHAMMED BADAWI 1 and KHALID MUJASAM BATOO 2,3 1.—University of Hafr Al –Batin College of Science, Hafer Al-Batin 39921, Saudi Arabia. 2.—King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11459, Saudi Arabia. 3.—e-mail: khalid.mujasam@gmail.com This paper reports the synthesis of conducting cotton thread strands obtained by dip coating in sodium dodecyl-benzene sulfonate (SDBS) surfactant with dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), as a promising candidate for energy storage applications. The effect of the dispersion and SDBS in the dissolved SWCNT solution was detected using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD confirms that there was good dispersion of SWCNTs on the cotton thread strands obtained by doping employing ethylene glycol (EG) which lowers the corrugation of the cotton thread. FE-SEM images obtained at different magnifications show micro-fibril structure. Energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) analysis confirms the presence of only C, Na and S, ruling out the presence of any elemental impurity. A strong decrease from 3.587X to 0.01257X in electrical resistance was observed when the concentration of SWCNTs was increased from 0.008049 wt.% to 1.07269 wt.%, indicating that the SWCNTs induced con- ductive properties in the cotton thread strands. The study shows that sodium dodecyl benzyl sulfonate (SDBS) has the best dispersion of single-walled carbon nanotubes in water when used along with ethylene glycol. The results show that the coated threads can have great industrial applications as con- duction wire substitute. Key words: Cotton thread, conductivity, SWCNTs, XRD, FTIR INTRODUCTION Textiles, composed of natural or synthetic fibers and filaments, have been used since prehistoric times, and they are essential to daily life. However, smart textiles or electronic textiles (E-textiles) are the new advancement in textile technology as well as electronics, wherein electronic components are directly integrated into textile substrates. 1 These advancements have led to the invention of smart wearable electronics, which is flexible fabric pos- sessing multifunctional electronic abilities. 2,3 One such fabric is cotton fabric, which has been proven to operate in a wide range of intelligent electronic textile applications such as field emission screens, 4 transistors, 5 diodes, 6 electromagnetic shielding, renewable, electromagnetic devices, etc. 7 On the other hand, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are classified as one of the most suitable candidates for various applications because of their optical, elec- trical, mechanical and environmentally friendly properties. 8–11 Additionally, incorporation of CNTs for the preparation of nanocomposites has report- edly led to enhancement of these properties. 12–18 Moreover, achieving high electrical conductivity and high permeability employing CNT can be obtained using coated films; however, this can be achieved by avoiding the clustering of SWCNTs which happens due to the strong van der Waals forces of attraction. In order to overcome strong van der Waals forces of attraction, dispersing agents are employed when (Received September 26, 2019; accepted August 11, 2020) Journal of ELECTRONIC MATERIALS https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-020-08411-4 Ó 2020 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society