Itaconic acid-enhanced robust ionic conductive elastomers for strain/pressure sensors

Abstract

Ionic conductive elastomers are functional polymer materials that have broad application prospects in advanced electronic fields, such as sensors, electrodes, stretchable panels and flexible energy storage devices. Most reported ionic conductive elastomers are still unable to meet the needs of advanced electronic products with both high mechanical strength and high tensile properties. In this study, based on the designability of a polymerizable deep eutectic solvent (PDES), we introduced the unsaturated diacid itaconic acid (IA) and N,N-dimethylacrylamide (DMA) into the acrylic acid/choline chloride (AA/ChCl)-type PDES system, and the P(IA/AA/DMA) elastomers were then obtained by one-step photoirradiation polymerization (UV irradiation for 30 s). The elastomers not only have excellent mechanical strength (tensile strength of 20.76 MPa) and good tensile properties (elongation at break of 558.7%) but also have high transparency (>90%), strong adhesion, good self-recovery and antibacterial properties. In addition, the ionic conductive elastomer has good electrical conductivity (conductivity of 0.02–0.04 S m⁻¹), which can be used not only as a strain sensor for the detection of human movement in the fingers, knees, throat and other parts, but also to detect pressure changes. We believe that the strategy provided in this study has broad application prospects in the future preparation of multifunctional ionic conductive elastomers and flexible wearable electronic devices.