A stretchable, self-healing conductive hydrogels based on nanocellulose supported graphene towards wearable monitoring of human motion

Chunxiao Zheng; Kaiyue Lu; Ya Lu; Sailing Zhu; Yiying Yue; Xinwu Xu; Changtong Mei; Huining Xiao; Qinglin Wu; Jingquan Han

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116905

A stretchable, self-healing conductive hydrogels based on nanocellulose supported graphene towards wearable monitoring of human motion

Carbohydr Polym. 2020 Dec 15:250:116905. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116905. Epub 2020 Aug 13.

Authors

Chunxiao Zheng¹, Kaiyue Lu¹, Ya Lu¹, Sailing Zhu¹, Yiying Yue², Xinwu Xu¹, Changtong Mei¹, Huining Xiao³, Qinglin Wu⁴, Jingquan Han⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Joint International Research Lab of Lignocellulosic Functional Materials, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China.
² College of Biology and Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 5A3, Canada.
⁴ School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
⁵ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Joint International Research Lab of Lignocellulosic Functional Materials, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China. Electronic address: hjq@njfu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33049881
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116905

Abstract

Stretchable, self-healing and conductive hydrogels have attracted much attention for wearable strain sensors, which are highly required in health monitoring, human-machine interaction and robotics. However, the integration of high stretchability, self-healing capacity and enhanced mechanical performance into one single conductive hydrogel is still challenging. In this work, a type of stretchable, self-healing and conductive composite hydrogels are fabricated by uniformly dispersing TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofibers (TOCNFs)-graphene (GN) nanocomposites into polyacrylic acid (PAA) hydrogel through an in-situ free radical polymerization. The resulting hydrogels demonstrate a stretchability (∼850 %), viscoelasticity (storage modulus of 32 kPa), mechanical strength (compression strength of 2.54 MPa, tensile strength of 0.32 MPa), electrical conductivity (∼ 2.5 S m^-1) and healing efficiency of 96.7 % within 12 h. The hydrogel-based strain sensor shows a high sensitivity with a gauge factor of 5.8, showing great potential in the field of self-healing wearable electronics.

Keywords: Graphene; Hydrogel; Nanocellulose; Polyacrylic acid; Self-healable; Sensing ability.

MeSH terms

Biocompatible Materials / chemistry
Electric Conductivity*
Graphite / chemistry*
Humans
Hydrogels / chemistry*
Monitoring, Physiologic / instrumentation*
Monitoring, Physiologic / methods
Movement*
Nanocomposites / chemistry*
Wearable Electronic Devices*

Substances

Biocompatible Materials
Hydrogels
Graphite