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Unlocking Intrinsic Conductive Dynamics of Ionogel Microneedle Arrays as Wearable Electronics for Intelligent Fire Safety

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Abstract

Ionogels have enabled flexible electronic devices for wide-ranging innovative applications in wearable electronics, soft robotics, and intelligent systems. Ionogels for flexible electronics need to essentially tolerate stress, temperature, humidity, and solvents that may cause their electrical conductivity, structural stability, processing compatibility and sensibility failure. Herein, we developed a novel in-situ photopolymerization protocol to fabricate intrinsically conductive, self-gated ionogels via ion-restriction dual effects. Highly sensitive and intelligent safety sensors with tunable stretchability, robust chemical stability, favorable printability, and complete recyclability, are programmed from defined microneedle arrays printed by the intrinsically conductive ionogel. Ultrahigh elasticity (~ 794% elongation), high compression tolerance (~ 90% deformation), improved mechanical strength (tensile and compressive strength of ~ 2.0 MPa and ~ 16.3 MPa, respectively) and remarkable transparency (> 91.1% transmittance), as well as high-temperature sensitivity (− 2.07% °C−1) and a wide working range (− 40 to 200 °C) can be achieved. In particular, the intrinsic sensing mechanisms of ion-restriction dual effects are unlocked based on DFT calculations and MD simulations, and operando temperature-dependent FTIR, and Raman technologies. Moreover, the real-time intelligent monitoring systems toward physical signals and precise temperature based on the microneedle array-structures sensors are also presented and demonstrate great potential applications for extreme environments, e.g., fire, deep-sea or aerospace.

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Data Availability

All data supporting the findings of this study are available within this article and Supplementary Information or from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0709900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22175167), and the National Key R&D Program of the MOST of China (Grant No. 2022YFA1602601).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Yapeng Zheng, Jingwen Wang, Tianyang Cui, Jixin Zhu & Zhou Gui

  2. Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE), Xi’an Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Xi’an Institute of Biomedical Materials & Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), 127 West Youyi Road, Xi’an, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Haodong Liu

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  1. Yapeng Zheng
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  2. Haodong Liu
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  3. Jingwen Wang
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  4. Tianyang Cui
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  5. Jixin Zhu
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  6. Zhou Gui
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Contributions

JZ and YZ conceived and designed this work. JZ and ZG provided financial support. YZ carried out the main experiments. YZ, JW, and TC performed the characterization and data analysis. YZ and JW performed molecular dynamics simulations and calculations. YZ and TC completed the finite-element simulation. HL and YZ performed the real-time intelligent monitoring systems design, construction, and operation. YZ and JZ wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jixin Zhu or Zhou Gui.

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Zheng, Y., Liu, H., Wang, J. et al. Unlocking Intrinsic Conductive Dynamics of Ionogel Microneedle Arrays as Wearable Electronics for Intelligent Fire Safety. Adv. Fiber Mater. 6, 195–213 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-023-00344-x

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