State Key Laboratory of Marine Food Processing & Safety Control, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, Liaoning Province 116034, China.
School of Light Industry and Chemical Engineering, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2024 Oct 30;16(43):58313-58325. doi: 10.1021/acsami.4c12118. Epub 2024 Oct 18.
Hydrogels have attracted substantial research interest for application in wearable electronics due to their stretchability, elasticity, and compliance. However, most hydrogels could not satisfy the application requirements for high-performance wearable sensors due to their poor sensitivity, low mechanical properties, and sensing detection range until this day. Inspired by the fascia in biological muscles, we propose a strategy to form entangled "clusters" through the dense entanglement between highly cross-linked elastic hydrogel microspheres and polymer segments, and prepared a multiscale hydrogel with high sensitivity and mechanical toughness. This strategy embedded highly swollen hydrogel microspheres (with different pore sizes) to act as the microregions of dense entanglement in the soft matrix to adjust the microstructure of multiscale gel. When pressure was applied, this structure could provide a fast response due to the stack layer formed by microspheres and soft matrix produced effective stress distribution, resulting in the outstanding sensitivity of the multiscale hydrogel ( = 1.1 kPa) in the pressure range of 0-50 kPa. The distinct microspheres functioning as microscale joint areas significantly augment energy dissipation, culminating in exceptional mechanical stability, ultrastretchability (≈1050%), and high strength of the multiscale hydrogel. The most notable progress was that the synthesized multiscale hydrogel not only combined the above advantages but also simultaneously solved multiple dilemmas of tedious synthesis steps, high cost, and poor durability. Besides, the multiscale hydrogel also had excellent antibacterial properties and biocompatibility, which enabled them to have large-scale application potential in wearable and implantable electronic devices. Our research could provide a universal approach to the creation of robust, flexible, wearable, and sensitive sensors, significantly increasing the uses of stress sensors in wearable technology.
水凝胶因其拉伸性、弹性和顺应性而在可穿戴电子产品中引起了广泛的研究兴趣。然而，由于其灵敏度差、机械性能低和传感检测范围窄，大多数水凝胶至今仍不能满足高性能可穿戴传感器的应用要求。受生物肌肉中的筋膜启发，我们提出了一种策略，通过高度交联的弹性水凝胶微球和聚合物链段之间的密集缠结形成纠缠的“团簇”，并制备了具有高灵敏度和机械韧性的多尺度水凝胶。该策略将高溶胀水凝胶微球（具有不同孔径）嵌入到软基质中作为密集缠结的微区，以调节多尺度凝胶的微观结构。当施加压力时，由于微球和软基质形成的堆积层产生有效的应力分布，这种结构可以提供快速响应，从而使多尺度水凝胶具有出色的灵敏度（=1.1kPa），在 0-50kPa 的压力范围内。作为微尺度关节区域的独特微球显著增加了能量耗散，最终使多尺度水凝胶具有出色的机械稳定性、超拉伸性（≈1050%）和高强度。最显著的进展是，合成的多尺度水凝胶不仅结合了上述优点，而且同时解决了繁琐的合成步骤、高成本和较差的耐用性等多个难题。此外，多尺度水凝胶还具有出色的抗菌性能和生物相容性，使其在可穿戴和植入式电子设备中有很大的应用潜力。我们的研究为创建坚固、灵活、可穿戴和敏感的传感器提供了一种通用方法，极大地增加了在可穿戴技术中使用压力传感器的用途。
