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Tough and elastic hydrogels based on robust hydrophobicity-assisted metal ion coordination for flexible wearable devices.

Zheng LiuKaixiang ShenMengyuan ZhangYuchen ZhangZhuting LvQinghua ShangRenjie LiCan ZhouYilong Cheng
Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. B (2024)
Flexible wearable sensors that combine excellent flexibility, high elasticity, sensing capabilities, and outstanding biocompatibility are gaining increasing attention. In this study, we successfully develop a robust and elastic hydrogel-based flexible wearable sensor by modulating molecular structures combined with metal ion coordination. We leverage three N -acryloyl amino acid monomers, including N -acryloyl glycine (AG), N -acryloyl alanine (AA), and N -acryloyl valine (AV) with different hydrophobic groups adjacent to the carboxyl group, to copolymerize with acrylamide (AM) in the presence of Zr 4+ for hydrogel preparation in one step (P(AM 3 -AG/AA/AV 0.06 )-Zr 0.03 4+ hydrogels). Our investigation reveals that the P(AM 3 -AV 0.06 )-Zr 0.03 4+ hydrogel with the most hydrophobic side group demonstrates superior mechanical properties (1.1 MPa tensile stress, 3566 kJ m -3 toughness and 1.3 kJ m -2 fracture energy) and resilience to multiple tensile (30% strain, 500 cycles) and compression cycling (50% strain, 500 cycles). Moreover, the P(AM 3 -AV 0.06 )-Zr 0.03 4+ hydrogel exhibits good biocompatibility and high conductivity (1.1 S m -1 ) and responsivity (GF = 16.21), and is proved to be suitable as a flexible wearable sensor for comprehensive human activity monitoring.
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