Rapid self-assembly of self-healable and transferable liquid metal epidermis

Xiaolong Yang; Tiansheng Gan; Dingling Zhong; Shutong Du; Shichang Wang; Florian J Stadler; Yaokang Zhang; Xuechang Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.070

Rapid self-assembly of self-healable and transferable liquid metal epidermis

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Mar 15:658:148-155. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.070. Epub 2023 Dec 12.

Authors

Xiaolong Yang¹, Tiansheng Gan¹, Dingling Zhong¹, Shutong Du¹, Shichang Wang², Florian J Stadler², Yaokang Zhang³, Xuechang Zhou⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518055, PR China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Polymer Science and Technology, Guangdong Research Center for Interfacial Engineering of Functional Materials, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518055, PR China.
³ College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518055, PR China. Electronic address: yk.zhang@szu.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518055, PR China. Electronic address: xczhou@szu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38100971
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.070

Abstract

Healable electronic skins, an essential component for future soft robotics, implantable bioelectronics, and smart wearable systems, necessitate self-healable and pliable materials that exhibit functionality at intricate interfaces. Although a plethora of self-healable materials have been developed, the fabrication of highly conformal biocompatible functional materials on complex biological surfaces remains a formidable challenge. Inspired by regenerative properties of skin, we present the self-assembled transfer-printable liquid metal epidermis (SALME), which possesses autonomous self-healing capabilities at the oil-water interface. SALME comprises a layer of surfactant-grafted liquid metal nanodroplets that spontaneously assemble at the oil-water interface within a few seconds. This unique self-assembly property facilitates rapid restoration (<10 s) of SALME following mechanical damage. In addition to its self-healing ability, SALME exhibits excellent shear resistance and can be seamlessly transferred to arbitrary hydrophilic/hydrophobic curved surfaces. The transferred SALME effectively preserves submicron-scale surface textures on biological substrates, thus displaying tremendous potential for future epidermal bioelectronics.

Keywords: Conformal electronics; Liquid metal; Liquid-liquid interface; Self-assembly; Self-healing.