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Fatigue-free artificial ionic skin toughened by self-healable elastic nanomesh.

Jiqiang WangBaohu WuPeng WeiShengtong SunPeiyi Wu
Published in: Nature communications (2022)
Robust ionic sensing materials that are both fatigue-resistant and self-healable like human skin are essential for soft electronics and robotics with extended service life. However, most existing self-healable artificial ionic skins produced on the basis of network reconfiguration suffer from a low fatigue threshold due to the easy fracture of low-energy amorphous polymer chains with susceptible crack propagation. Here we engineer a fatigue-free yet fully healable hybrid ionic skin toughened by a high-energy, self-healable elastic nanomesh, resembling the repairable nanofibrous interwoven structure of human skin. Such a design affords a superhigh fatigue threshold of 2950 J m -2 while maintaining skin-like compliance, stretchability, and strain-adaptive stiffening response. Moreover, nanofiber tension-induced moisture breathing of ionic matrix leads to a record-high strain-sensing gauge factor of 66.8, far exceeding previous intrinsically stretchable ionic conductors. This concept creates opportunities for designing durable ion-conducting materials that replicate the unparalleled combinatory properties of natural skins more precisely.
Keyphrases
  • ionic liquid
  • solid state
  • sleep quality
  • wound healing
  • healthcare
  • mental health
  • depressive symptoms
  • room temperature
  • oxidative stress
  • high glucose
  • ultrasound guided
  • physical activity
  • stress induced