Dynamically Crosslinked Dry Ion-Conducting Elastomers for Soft Iontronics

Panpan Zhang; Wenbin Guo; Zi Hao Guo; Yuan Ma; Lei Gao; Zifeng Cong; Xue Jiao Zhao; Lijie Qiao; Xiong Pu; Zhong Lin Wang

doi:10.1002/adma.202101396

Dynamically Crosslinked Dry Ion-Conducting Elastomers for Soft Iontronics

Adv Mater. 2021 Aug;33(31):e2101396. doi: 10.1002/adma.202101396. Epub 2021 Jun 21.

Authors

Panpan Zhang¹, Wenbin Guo^{1

2}, Zi Hao Guo^{1

2}, Yuan Ma³, Lei Gao³, Zifeng Cong^{1

2}, Xue Jiao Zhao¹, Lijie Qiao³, Xiong Pu^{1

2

4}, Zhong Lin Wang^{1

2

5}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Key Laboratory of Micro-Nano Energy and Sensor, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400, China.
² School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Institute for Advanced Materials and Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China.
⁴ Center on Nanoenergy Research, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0245, USA.

PMID: 34151471
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202101396

Abstract

Soft ionic conductors show great promise in multifunctional iontronic devices, but currently utilized gel materials suffer from liquid leakage or evaporation issues. Here, a dry ion-conducting elastomer with dynamic crosslinking structures is reported. The dynamic crosslinking structures endow it with combined advantageous properties simultaneously, including high ionic conductivity (2.04 × 10^-4 S cm^-1 at 25 °C), self-healing capability (96% healing efficiency), stretchability (563%), and transparency (78%). With this ionic conductor as the electrode, two soft iontronic devices (electroluminescent devices and triboelectric nanogenerator tactile sensors) are realized with entirely self-healing and stretchable capabilities. Due to the absence of liquid materials, the dry ion-conducting elastomer shows wide operational temperature range, and the iontronic devices achieve excellent stability. These findings provide a promising strategy to achieve highly conductive and multifunctional soft dry ionic conductors, and demonstrate their great potential in soft iontronics or electronics.

Keywords: electroluminescent devices; ion-conducting elastomers; iontronics; self-healing; triboelectric nanogenerators.

Abstract

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