Highly Stretchable, Self‐Healing, and Low Temperature Resistant Double Network Hydrogel Ionic Conductor as Flexible Sensor and Quasi‐Solid Electrolyte

Abstract

With the rapid development of flexible energy storage and wearable strain sensing, conductive hydrogels are attracting attention as electrolyte materials for flexible strain sensors and flexible supercapacitors due to their excellent flexibility and wetting properties. In this work, antifreezing hydrogels with high stretchability, adhesion, and conductivity are designed and prepared by introducing phosphoric acid solutions into polyacrylamide and chitosan systems. The multifunctional hydrogel samples prepared by this method can be used as both quasi-solid electrolytes and wearable strain sensors. The hydrogel-based supercapacitor shows a charge/discharge efficiency of 99.67% and a capacitance retention of 98.85% after 10 000 cycles charge/discharge tests at −30 °C. The tiny characteristic heartbeat wave forms are detected by the hydrogel as a flexible strain sensor. It is foreseeable that PCP multifunctional hydrogel can be a promising flexible material for a new generation of flexible sensors and flexible energy storage devices in a certain range of temperatures.

A stretchable flexible strain sensor with high sensitivity and fast response fabricated by embedded 3D printing of the hybrid polydimethylsiloxane/conductive carbon paste composites

“…Flexible strain sensors 1,2 are a new type of strain measurement device that realizes strain monitoring by converting stimuli into recognizable electrical signals, with the characteristic of maintaining the measurement function while also being able to conformally attach to the surface of the object to achieve continuous measurements and have a broad range of applications in electronic skins, soft robots, and human body motion monitoring 3 . Depending on the load direction, these flexible strain sensors may be classified into stretchable 4–7 and compressive 8–11 flexible strain sensors.…”

PVA Electrospun Fibers Coated with PPy Nanoparticles for Wearable Strain Sensors

“…Smart and wearable strain sensor transduces external pressure into electrical signal, widely applies in robotics, [1,2] electronic skin, [3][4][5][6] and other flexible electronic devices. [7][8][9][10] The current wearable strain sensors commonly employ polymer films as matrixes, including resistive, capacitive, and piezoelectric type stress/strain sensors. Among them, the wearable resistive sensor is of great importance for commercial applications, but faces challenges of wide response range, high sensitivity, and high stretchability.…”