Currently, various electronic devices make our life more and more safe, healthy, and comfortable, but at the same time, they produce a large amount of nondegradable and nonrecyclable electronic waste that threatens our environment. In this work, we explore an environmentally friendly and flexible mechanical sensor that is biodegradable and recyclable. The sensor consists of a bacterial cellulose (BC) hydrogel as the matrix and imidazolium perchlorate (ImClO4) molecular ferroelectric as the functional element, the hybrid of which possesses a high sensitivity of 4 mV kPa-1 and a wide operational range from 0.2 to 31.25 kPa, outperforming those of most devices based on conventional functional biomaterials. Moreover, the BC hydrogel can be fully degraded into glucose and oligosaccharides, while ImClO4 can be recyclable and reused for the same devices, leaving no environmentally hazardous electronic waste.
Keywords: bacterial cellulose hydrogels; biodegradable; mechanical sensors; molecular ferroelectrics; piezoelectricity; recyclable devices.