Self-Healing, Anti-Fatigue, Antimicrobial Ionic Conductive Hydrogels Based on Choline-Amino Acid Polyionic Liquids for Multi-Functional Sensors

In recent years, gel-based sensors have been widely considered and fully developed. However, it is of vital importance, yet rather challenging to achieve a multifaceted gel, which can unify the advantages of favorable conductivity, high adhesion, excellent environmental resistance, and so forth and be applied in various harsh conditions. Herein, an ideal, extremely stable, adhesive, conductive poly(ionic liquid) gel (PILG) was designed via a one-step photoinitiated radical polymerization based on 1-vinyl-3-butylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide (VBIm-NTf2) cross-linked with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) in methyltributylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (N1444-NTf2) medium. There are abundant hydrophobic butyl chains and fluorinated groups in VBIm-NTf2 and N1444-NTf2, which can impart the PILG with stable conductivity, excellent environmental tolerance, and adhesion even in water due to the ion-dipole and ion-ion interactions. The resulting PILG can be assembled as a soft and smart sensor that can be applied in specific conditions such as underwater or undersea and even in dynamic water, achieving a stable signal transmission. Meanwhile, the PILG can be utilized as a flexible electrode to convey ECG signals in air or water whether it is in the static or dynamic state. Therefore, it is envisioned that this novel PILG will serve as a hopeful electrical device for signal detection and healthy management in specific environments.

Superior, Environmentally Tolerant, Flexible, and Adhesive Poly(ionic liquid) Gel as a Multifaceted Underwater Sensor.

Here, we report a simple method for preparing muscle-mimetic highly tough, conductive, and stretchable liquid crystalline ionogels which contains only one poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) in an ionic liquid via in situ free radical photohomopolymerization by using nitrogen gas instead of air atmosphere. Due to eliminating the inhibition caused by dissolved oxygen, the polymerization under nitrogen gas has much higher molecular weight, lower critical sol-gel concentration, and stronger mechanical properties. More importantly, benefiting from the unique loofah-like microstructures along with the strong internal ionic interactions, entanglements of long PIL chains and liquid crystalline domains, the ionogels show special optical anisotropic, superstretchability (>8000%), high fracture strength (up to 16.52 MPa), high toughness (up to 39.22 MJ/m3), and have ultrafast self-healing, ultrastrong adhesive, and excellent shape memory properties. Due to its excellent stretchability and good conductive-strain responsiveness, the as-prepared ionogel can be easily applied for high-performance flexible and wearable sensors for motion detecting. Therefore, this paper provides an effective route and developed method to generate highly stretchable conductive liquid crystalline ionogels/elastomers that can be used in widespread flexible and wearable electronics.

Muscle-Mimetic Highly Tough, Conductive, and Stretchable Poly(ionic liquid) Liquid Crystalline Ionogels with Ultrafast Self-Healing, Super Adhesive, and Remarkable Shape Memory Properties.

Conjoined-network induced highly tough hydrogels by using copolymer and nano-cellulose for oilfield water plugging

Supramolecular hydrogel based on polyionic liquids for underwater sensing

Gel electrolytes have aroused extensive interest for diverse flexible electronics due to their high ionic conductivity and inherent stretchability. However, gel electrolytes still face challenges in terms of mechanical properties, fatigue resistance, and environmental adaptation, which severely limit the practical application of gel-based electronics. In this paper, we have synthesized a novel polymerizable ionic liquid [SBMA][AA] by mixing zwitterionic sulfobetaine methacrylate with acrylic acid. Then a dually cross-linked single network poly(ionic liquid)/ionic liquid (DCSN PIL/IL) ionogel was prepared by a simple one-step photopolymerization of the [SBMA][AA] in another IL 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanoamide ([EmIm][DCA]). The synergistic effect between covalent crosslinking and dynamic physical crosslinking points endows the ionogel with good mechanical properties as well as outstanding fatigue resistance. Gratifyingly, the entrapment of [EmIm][DCA] in the ionogel matrix yields excellent environmental adaptability and high ionic conductivity. Meanwhile, the DCSN PIL/IL ionogel also exhibited strong adhesive capacity due to the abundance of carboxyl and sulphonic acid groups. The outstanding electromechanical properties make the DCSN PIL/IL ionogel a perfect candidate for strain sensors to monitor diverse human body activities, such as the movement of the thumb knuckle and handwriting. Interestingly, the DCSN PIL/IL ionogel also displayed high responsiveness to humidity. Therefore, it is believed that this DCSN PIL/IL ionogel offers a broad prospect in flexible strain-humidity bimodal sensors.

Fei Lu

Papers

Dually cross-linked single network poly(ionic liquid)/ionic liquid ionogels for a flexible strain-humidity bimodal sensor.