Archimedean Spiral Inspired Conductive Supramolecular Elastomer with Rapid Electrical and Mechanical Self‐Healing Capability for Sensor Application

Abstract

In addition to flexibility and stretchability, self‐healing capability will become another characteristic for next‐generation electronics and devices. However, developing electronic materials with both good mechanical and electrical self‐healing abilities still remains a great challenge yet an exciting goal. Herein, a new kind of self‐healing conductive elastomer via alliance of supramolecular chemistry and Archimedean spiral‐structure design is reported to break the trade‐off between mechanical and electrical healing capabilities. The spirally structured conductive layout enables the material to rapidly self‐heal both mechanical (within 15 s) and electrical (within 0.25 s) damages with high efficiency, while without sacrificing the softness and stretchability of the self‐healing elastomer matrix. As a proof‐of‐concept, such materials can be used to fabricate self‐healable wearable sensors for monitoring diverse human activities. The rapidly, efficiently, mechanically, and electrically self‐healing materials demonstrated in this work facilitate the design and application of a wide range of stretchable and reliable electronic devices.

Stretchable and Self-Healable Poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) Elastomer with Metal–Ligand Coordination Complexes

“…Several previous groups have reported various attempts to utilize self-healing elastomers in soft electronics, for example, coating elastomer surfaces with metal nanoparticles or embedding them with conductive fillers to improve the electrical properties of elastomers, which can lead to loss of stretchability. − However, the approach proposed in this study ensures electrical properties in such materials without additional processing and hindering elastic property, owing to the presence of metal ions. As shown in Figure g, 110 V voltage was applied on the Ag–SAN150 connected in series with the light-emitting diode (LED).…”

The Evolution of Flexible Electronics: From Nature, Beyond Nature, and To Nature

“…Being similar to the Archimedean spiral structure in many plants and animals like sunflower, snail shell, etc., an ultra-efficiently self-healable sensor was developed, which could rapidly self-heal both mechanical (within 15 s) and electrical (within 0.25 s) damages without sacrificing the softness and stretchability of the selfhealing elastomer matrix. [121] The spirally structured layout is illustrated in Figure 4f, where alternating CNTs layers (≈2 µm) and elastomer layers (≈20 µm) could be observed clearly (Figure 4g). Interestingly, even if only a small part of the cut sam-ple was reconnected, the reconstruction of conductive pathways is still efficient in such spirally structured layout (Figure 4h).…”

“…f-h) Reproduced with permission. [121] Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. i) Schematic configuration of the flexible tactile sensor.…”

Recent Advances in Self‐Healable Intelligent Materials Enabled by Supramolecular Crosslinking Design

“…Contrast to others reported strategies, the collective effect of noncovalent interactions at the interface of fillers and polymer matrix produces a strong adhesive force, endowing the obtained self-healable materials with a series of advantages such as enhanced mechanical properties and excellent functional stability. [42][43][44][45][46][47] How to construct an efficient interaction between polymer matrix and functional network is the key topic of the design and achievement of self-healable intelligent materials. A highly sensitive and self-healable strain sensor based on interfacial hydrogen bonding interaction and nanostructured conductive network has been presented as shown in Figure 4a.…”

“…Contrast to others reported strategies, the collective effect of noncovalent interactions at the interface of fillers and polymer matrix produces a strong adhesive force, endowing the obtained self‐healable materials with a series of advantages such as enhanced mechanical properties and excellent functional stability. [ 42–47 ]…”