Fully Physically Crosslinked Hydrogel with Ultrastretchability, Transparency, and Freezing-Tolerant Properties for Strain Sensor
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Nowadays, conductive hydrogels show significant prospects as strain sensors due to their good stretchability and signal transduction abilities. However, traditional hydrogels possess poor anti-freezing performance at low temperatures owing to the large number of water molecules, which limits their application scope. To date, constructing a hydrogel-based sensor with balanced stretchability, conductivity, transparency, and anti-freezing properties via simple methods has proven challenging. Here, a fully physically crosslinked poly(hydroxyethyl acrylamide)-glycerol-sodium chloride (PHEAA-Gl-NaCl) hydrogel was obtained by polymerizing hydroxyethyl acrylamide in deionized water and then soaking it in a saturated NaCl solution of glycerol and water. The PHEAA-Gl-NaCl hydrogel had good transparency (~93%), stretchability (~1300%), and fracture stress (~287 kPa). Owing to the presence of glycerol and sodium chloride, the PHEAA-Gl-NaCl hydrogel had good anti-freezing properties and conductivity. Furthermore, the PHEAA-Gl-NaCl hydrogel-based strain sensor possessed good sensitivity and cyclic stability, enabling the detection of different human motions stably and in a wide temperature range. Based on the above characteristics, the PHEAA-Gl-NaCl hydrogel has broad application prospects in flexible electronic materials.
Source: Materials
DOI: 10.3390/ma17205102
Authors: Pengbo Shang, Yang Ji, Feng Ji
Institutions: Tianma Microelectronics (China), Quanzhou Normal University
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,955
OpenAlex ID: W4403586260