Hydrogel-based
wearable sensors have experienced an explosive development,
whereas functional integration to mimic the multisignal responsiveness
of skin especially for pressure and temperature remained a challenge.
Herein, a functional ionic hydrogel-base flexible sensor was successfully
prepared by integrating the thermal-sensitive N-isopropylacrylamide
(NIPAAm) into another conductive double-network hydrogel based on
polyvinyl alcohol–graphene oxide (PVA–GO) and polyacrylic
acid–Fe3+ (PAA–Fe3+). Because
of the multisynergistic network design, the triple-network hydrogel
was endowed with excellent conductivity (∼170 Ω/mm),
mechanical tolerance (1.1 MPa), and rapid recoverability (within 0.5
s), which demonstrated the potential use in pressure monitoring. Moreover,
the introduction of a thermal-sensitive network allowed it to capture
the changes in the human body temperature accurately simultaneously
and to be further developed as a flexible temperature sensor. In particular,
the unsynchronization of pressure and temperature strain (straining
to stability within 0.5 s and more than 50 s, respectively) caused
the two electrical signals to be automatically separated. Intuitive
reading of data without involving complex parameter separation calculations
allowed the hydrogel to be developed as an integrated dual temperature–pressure-sensitive
flexible sensor. In addition, all above properties demonstrated that
the as-prepared functional hydrogel could be extended to the practical
application in human–machine interactions and personalized
multisignal monitoring.
Carbon
fiber aerogel (CFA) derived from cotton wool as a potential
microwave absorbing material has received intensive attention owing
to the low density, high conductivity, large surface area, and low
cost, but its applications are limited by the relatively high complex
permittivity. To solve this problem, TiO2@C (derived from
Ti3C2T
x
) is introduced
into CFA to prepare lightweight TiO2@C/CFA composites based
on electromagnetic (EM) parameter optimization and enhanced EM wave
attenuation performance. The microwave absorption capacity of TiO2@C/CFA-2 composite is obviously better than that of CFA. It
is confirmed that good impedance matching derived from the combination
of TiO2@C and CFA is the main factor to achieve excellent
microwave absorption. Moreover, the improved microwave absorption
capabilities are closely related to multiple EM wave absorbing mechanisms
including multiple reflections and scattering, dipolar and interfacial
polarization, and conductivity loss. TiO2@C/CFA-2 possesses
a maximum reflection loss (RL) of −43.18 dB at a low response
frequency of 6.0 GHz. As the matching thickness is less than 2.0 mm,
the maximum RL values can still exceed −20 dB, and at the same
time, the wide effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) below −10
dB achieves 4.36 GHz at only 1.9 mm thickness. Our work confirms that
the lightweight and high-performance TiO2@C/CFA composites
are promising choices and offer a new approach to design and construct
carbon-based microwave absorbents derived from biomass.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.