Issue 9, 2023

A liquid-free conducting ionoelastomer for 3D printable multifunctional self-healing electronic skin with tactile sensing capabilities

Abstract

Conductive elastomers with both softness and conductivity are widely used in the field of flexible electronics. Nonetheless, conductive elastomers typically exhibit prominent problems such as solvent volatilization and leakage, and poor mechanical and conductive properties, which limit their applications in electronic skin (e-skin). In this work, a liquid-free conductive ionogel (LFCIg) with excellent performance was fabricated by utilizing the innovative double network design approach based on a deep eutectic solvent (DES). The double-network LFCIg is cross-linked by dynamic non-covalent bonds, which exhibit excellent mechanical properties (2100% strain while sustaining a fracture strength of 1.23 MPa) and >90% self-healing efficiency, and a superb electrical conductivity of 23.3 mS m−1 and 3D printability. Moreover, the conductive elastomer based on LFCIg has been developed into a stretchable strain sensor that achieves accurate response recognition, classification, and identification of different robot gestures. More impressively, an e-skin with tactile sensing functions is produced by in situ 3D printing of sensor arrays on flexible electrodes to detect light weight objects and recognize the resulting spatial pressure variations. Collectively, the results demonstrate that the designed LFCIg has unparalleled advantages and presents wide application potential in flexible robotics, e-skin and physiological signal monitoring.

Graphical abstract: A liquid-free conducting ionoelastomer for 3D printable multifunctional self-healing electronic skin with tactile sensing capabilities

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
23 apr 2023
Accepted
09 iyn 2023
First published
10 iyn 2023

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 3610-3621

A liquid-free conducting ionoelastomer for 3D printable multifunctional self-healing electronic skin with tactile sensing capabilities

Q. Wu, Y. Xu, S. Han, J. Zhu, A. Chen, J. Zhang, Y. Chen, X. Yang, J. Huang and L. Guan, Mater. Horiz., 2023, 10, 3610 DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00612C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements