Parida Kaushik, Thangavel Gurunathan, Cai Guofa, Zhou Xinran, Park Sangbaek, Xiong Jiaqing, Lee Pooi See
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
Singapore-HUJ Alliance for Research and Enterprise (SHARE), Nanomaterials for Energy and Water Nexus (NEW), Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), 1 Create Way, Singapore, 138602, Singapore.
Nat Commun. 2019 May 14;10(1):2158. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-10061-y.
Advances in next-generation soft electronic devices rely on the development of highly deformable, healable, and printable energy generators to power these electronics. Development of deformable or wearable energy generators that can simultaneously attain extreme stretchability with superior healability remains a daunting challenge. We address this issue by developing a highly conductive, extremely stretchable, and healable composite based on thermoplastic elastomer with liquid metal and silver flakes as the stretchable conductor for triboelectric nanogenerators. The elastomer is used both as the matrix for the conductor and as the triboelectric layer. The nanogenerator showed a stretchability of 2500% and it recovered its energy-harvesting performance after extreme mechanical damage, due to the supramolecular hydrogen bonding of the thermoplastic elastomer. The composite of the thermoplastic elastomer, liquid metal particles, and silver flakes exhibited an initial conductivity of 6250 S cm and recovered 96.0% of its conductivity after healing.
下一代软电子设备的进展依赖于高度可变形、可自愈且可印刷的能量发生器的开发，以为这些电子产品供电。开发能够同时实现极致拉伸性和卓越自愈性的可变形或可穿戴能量发生器仍然是一项艰巨的挑战。我们通过开发一种基于热塑性弹性体的高导电性、极高拉伸性且可自愈的复合材料来解决这一问题，该复合材料以液态金属和银片作为摩擦电纳米发电机的可拉伸导体。弹性体既用作导体的基质，又用作摩擦电层。由于热塑性弹性体的超分子氢键作用，该纳米发电机显示出2500%的拉伸性，并且在受到极端机械损伤后恢复了其能量收集性能。热塑性弹性体、液态金属颗粒和银片的复合材料初始电导率为6250 S cm，愈合后恢复了96.0%的电导率。
