1. Moisture self-regulating ionic skins with ultra-long ambient stability for self-healing energy and sensing systems
- Author
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He, Peisheng, Long, Yu, Fang, Chao, Ahn, Christine Heera, Lee, Ashley, Chen, Chun-Ming, Park, Jong Ha, Wang, Monong, Ghosh, Sujoy Kumar, Qiu, Wenying, Guo, Ruiqi, Xu, Renxiao, Shao, Zhichun, Peng, Yande, Zhang, Likun, Mi, Baoxia, Zhong, Junwen, and Lin, Liwei
- Subjects
Engineering ,Materials Engineering ,Electronics ,Sensors and Digital Hardware ,Affordable and Clean Energy ,Hydrogels ,Self-powered sensor ,Ionic skins ,Ambient stability ,Self-healing ,Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry ,Nanotechnology ,Macromolecular and materials chemistry ,Materials engineering - Abstract
Dehydration has been a key limiting factor for the operation of conductive hydrogels in practical application. Here, we report self-healable ionic skins that can self-regulate their internal moisture level by capturing extenral moistures via hygroscopic ion-coordinated polymer backbones through antipolyelectrolyte effect. Results show the ionic skin can maintain its mechanical and electrical functions over 16 months in the ambient environment with high stretchability (fracture stretch ∼2216 %) and conductivity (23.5 mS/cm). The moisture self-regulating capability is further demonstrated by repeated exposures to harsh environments such as 200°C heating, freezing, and vacuum drying with recovered conductivity and stretchability. Their reversible ionic and hydrogen bonds also enable self-healing feature as a sample with the fully cut-through damage can restore its conductivity after 24 h at 40 % relative humidity. Utilizing the ionic skin as a building block, self-healing flexible piezoelecret sensors have been constructed to monitor physiological signals. Together with a facile transfer-printing process, a self-powered sensing system with a self-healable supercapacitor and humidity sensor has been successfully demonstrated. These results illustrate broad-ranging possibilities for the ionic skins in applications such as energy storage, wearable sensors, and human-machine interfaces.
- Published
- 2024