Ultrastable and supersensitive conductive hydrogels conferred by "sodium alginate stencil" anchoring strategy

Gangrong Wang; Zhuo Chen; Xin Jing; Xijian Yi; Jian Zou; Peiyong Feng; Hailiang Zhang; Yuejun Liu

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122048

Ultrastable and supersensitive conductive hydrogels conferred by "sodium alginate stencil" anchoring strategy

Carbohydr Polym. 2024 Jul 1:335:122048. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122048. Epub 2024 Mar 15.

Authors

Gangrong Wang¹, Zhuo Chen¹, Xin Jing², Xijian Yi¹, Jian Zou¹, Peiyong Feng¹, Hailiang Zhang³, Yuejun Liu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Packaging Materials and Technology of Hunan Province, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China; National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Advanced Packaging Material and Technology, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China.
² Key Laboratory of Advanced Packaging Materials and Technology of Hunan Province, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China; National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Advanced Packaging Material and Technology, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China. Electronic address: jingxin@hut.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Polymeric Materials and Application Technology of Hunan Province, College of Chemistry, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Advanced Packaging Materials and Technology of Hunan Province, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China; National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Advanced Packaging Material and Technology, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China. Electronic address: yjliu_2005@126.com.

PMID: 38616087
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122048

Abstract

Although conductive hydrogels have been widely developed currently, their low sensitivity and poor stability severely limited their practical application in flexible wearable devices. Herein, a green "stencil" anchoring strategy was proposed in this study to engineer an ultra-stable and supersensitive hydrogel by virtue of polydopamine decorating sodium alginate molecular chains as "stencil" to anchor polyaniline as conductive component. The dispersion of polyaniline was significantly improved by the sodium alginate "stencil" in the conductive hydrogel. The developed conductive hydrogel exhibited outstanding properties that outperformed most conventional ones, including extraordinary sensitivity with a gauge factor of 38.2 and excellent stability with negligible shifting upon long-term cyclic stretching. Moreover, the conductive hydrogel displayed great self-adhesion and reliable self-healing performance endowed by its abundant catechol groups, hydrogen bondings and π-π stackings, respectively. Furthermore, the prepared hydrogel was also assembled as flexible strain and self-powered sensors, which displayed excellent sensing performance, indicating great potential in human-machine interactions, information transmission and road transportation.

Keywords: Conductive hydrogels; Long-term stability; Polyaniline; Sensitivity; Sodium alginate.