The materials for emulsion separation, with low pressure, high flux, high stability, are of great interest in the treatment of oily wastewater. Herein, we report a facile strategy for the...
Device–body interface is significant for acquiring high quality bio‐signals, preventing skin‐irritation, and minimizing the motion artifacts. However, low breathability of the typical substrate used in a flexible electronic device usually deteriorates the stability of device–body interface, which is imperative for long‐term application but commonly disregarded. In paper, a directional sweat transport and breathable electrode with three‐layer sandwiched structure is reported. The top hydrophilic hydrolyzed‐polyacrylonitrile (HPAN) layer and middle hydrophobic thermoplastic‐polyurethane (TPU) layer form Janus structure; and the bottom layer is an electrode layer of Ag nanowires (AgNWs). This dedicatedly designed electrode can transport sweat from skin to the top HPAN layer, while keeping low noise electrocardiogram (ECG) signal detection. In the trial of ECG monitoring, the results show that the electrode can achieve reliable recording with high signal noise rate (SNR) both in calm state (10.5 dB) and sweaty state (10.1 dB) with sweat tolerance. No allergy or obvious SNR degeneration is observed when utilizing the electrode owing to the effective sweat transport away from the device–body interface rather than accumulation. Finally, the application of the anti‐sweat accumulating electrode in wearable electronics is demonstrated.
A stable and seamless adhesion between the human skin
and the hydrogel-based
electronic skin is necessary for accurate sensing and human health
monitoring in aquatic environments. Despite achieving significant
progress in this field, it remains a great challenge to design skin-interfaced
conductive hydrogels with high electrical conductivity, stablility,
and seamless underwater adhesion to skin. Herein, a skin-inspired
conductive multifunctional hydrogel is proposed, which has a wet-adhesive/hydrophilic
and a non-adhesive/hydrophobic bilayer structure. The hydrogel shows
high stretchability (∼2400%) and an ultra-low modulus (4.5
kPa), which facilitate the conformal and seamless attachment of the
hydrogel to the skin with reduced motion artifacts. Owing to synergistic
physical and chemical interactions, this hydrogel can achieve reliable
underwater adhesion and display remarkable underwater adhesion strength
(388.1 kPa) to porcine skin. In addition, MXene has been employed
to obtain high electrical conductivity, create a route for stable
electron transport, and reinforce mechanical properties. The hydrogel
also possesses self-healing ability, a low swelling ratio (∼3.8%),
biocompatibility, and specific adhesion to biological tissues in water.
Facilitated with these advantages, the hydrogel-based electrodes achieve
reliable electrophysiological signal detection in both air and wet
conditions and demonstrate a higher signal-to-noise ratio (28.3 dB)
than that of commercial Ag/AgCl gel electrodes (18.5 dB). Also, the
hydrogel can be utilized as a strain sensor with high sensitivity
for underwater communication. This multifunctional hydrogel improves
the stability of the skin–hydrogel interface in aquatic environments
and is expected to be promising for the next-generation bio-integrated
electronics.
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