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Tough, conductive hydrogels with double-network based on hydrophilic polymer assistant well-dispersed carbon nanotube for innovative force sensor

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Abstract

In recent years, conductive hydrogels have become a promising candidate for application in fields such as tissue engineering and flexible electronic devices because of their conductivity, soft and wet nature. However, the preparation of tough and uniformly conductive hydrogels remains challenging because conductive nanofillers tend to aggregate during hydrogel formation. Herein, a hydrophilic polymer assistant dispersion strategy is proposed to fabricate a tough, conductive composite hydrogel with double-network based on well-dispersed carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In particular, A@T2.0/polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels showed a tensile strength of 332.9 kPa, elongation of 584.6%, Young’s modulus of 91.5 kPa, and conductivity of 2.765 S m−1, and a demonstration was performed to show the strain sensing for health monitoring and handwriting. Results showed that the fabricated conductive hydrogels offer promising and broad insights in the field of wearable sensors for health monitoring, innovative electronics, and human machine interactions.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    GuoYin Chen, Ying Guo, S. Benjamin Hsiao, Kai Hou & MeiFang Zhu

  2. Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University, New York, 11794, USA

    S. Benjamin Hsiao

Authors
  1. GuoYin Chen
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  2. Ying Guo
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  3. S. Benjamin Hsiao
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  4. Kai Hou
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  5. MeiFang Zhu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kai Hou.

Additional information

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant No. 21ZR1400500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52173029, 51803022, 51733002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 2232021D-05, 2232018A3-01), the Cooperative Project with Bestee (Grant No. 106210232), and the Graduate Student Innovation Fund of Donghua University (Grant No. CUSF-DH-D-2020038).

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The supporting information is available online at tech.scichina.com and link.springer.com. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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11431_2021_2000_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Tough, Conductive Hydrogels with Double-network Based on Hydrophilic Polymer Assistant Well-Dispersed Carbon Nanotube for Innovative Force Sensor

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Chen, G., Guo, Y., Hsiao, S.B. et al. Tough, conductive hydrogels with double-network based on hydrophilic polymer assistant well-dispersed carbon nanotube for innovative force sensor. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 65, 1160–1168 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-021-2000-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-021-2000-7

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