An extremely transparent and multi-responsive healable hydrogel strain sensor

作者：Wang, Min; Chen, Hong; Li, Xiaoxia; Wang, Guokai; Peng, Can; Wang, Wen; Zhang, Fan; Wang, Jianqing; Liu, Huanhuan^*; Yan, Guoqing^*; Qin, Haili^*

来源：Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2022, 10(45): 24096-24105.

DOI：10.1039/d2ta06218f

• NANOCOMPOSITE HYDROGELS
• CONDUCTIVE HYDROGEL
• ADHESIVE
• TOUGH
• PI

Hydrogels that are both transparent and conductive are promising materials for flexible electronics. The increase in individual conducting units always lowers their transparency, leading to limited application scope. Here, a high-performance hydrogel sensor with high transparency, as well as multi-responsive self-healing ability, is developed through in situ polymerization using an ultra-low content (1.08 x 10(-4) wt%) of carboxyl multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-MWCNTs) and self-assembled catechin nanoparticles (NPs) as the electron bridging agents. Due to the substantial interfacial interactions, including pi-pi and hydrogen bonds, and the markedly decreased contact resistance between c-MWCNTs, the target hydrogel exhibits high transparency of 90% at 550 nm and good conductivity of 0.19 S m(-1). Besides, the target hydrogel offers a series of smart characteristics, including outstanding biocompatibility, remarkable notch insensitivity, strong adhesion, multi-responsive self-healing property and electromechanical stability ranging from 0.1% to a high strain of 900%. These prominent performance merits make this emerging hydrogel sensor a highly potential candidate for next-generation flexible and wearable electronics.

• 单位
  安徽医科大学