MSc Thesis Defense: Ayça Aydurmuş, NOVEL MATERIALS DESIGN FOR FLEXIBLE SENSOR APPLICATIONS
NOVEL MATERIALS DESIGN FOR FLEXIBLE SENSOR APPLICATIONS
Ayça Aydurmuş
Materials Science and Nano Engineering, MSc Thesis, 2025
Thesis Jury
Prof. Gözde İnce (Thesis Advisor)
Prof. Güllü Kızıltaş Şendur
Prof. Cem Bülent Üstündağ
Date & Time: December 19th, 2025 – 11:00 AM
Place: FASS 1010
Zoom Link: https://sabanciuniv.zoom.us/j/
Keywords : Flexible Capacitive Pressure Sensors, Ionic Hydrogels, Conductive Textiles
Abstract
The demand for flexible sensors has grown with the advancements in wearable electronic devices. Wearable pressure sensors are essential in healthcare monitoring, providing various advantages and enhancing patient care. This thesis investigates a flexible and breathable capacitive pressure sensor architecture by integrating conductive textile electrodes and ionic hydrogel-based dielectric layers. Cotton and polyester fabrics were employed as electrode substrates and turned into conductive with polypyrrole coatings applied via vapor phase polymerization, resulting in homogeneous, mechanically robust, and deformation tolerant conductive layers suited for wearable applications. To address the limitations of conventional elastomeric dielectrics, ionic hydrogels based on natural polymers, including alginate, gelatin, and konjac glucomannan, as well as the semi-synthetic polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), were investigated as dielectric layers. In this work, PVA-based hydrogels were additionally fabricated and served as a control group to enable a comparative evaluation of the dielectric and sensing performance. Because of their three-dimensional ionically functionalized networks, these hydrogels have superior dielectric characteristics via electric double layer generation and ion transport under an applied electric field, resulting in higher capacitance and pressure sensitivity. In addition to their excellent electrochemical and mechanical performance, natural polymer-based ionic hydrogels provide an environmentally friendly alternative to manufactured materials. Overall, this study shows that the integration of conductive textiles with natural ionic hydrogel dielectrics enables a promising strategy for breathable, sustainable, and high-performance