Self-healing, environmentally stable and adhesive hydrogel sensor with conductive cellulose nanocrystals for motion monitoring and character recognition

Yafang Wang; Anrong Yao; Baojie Dou; Cuimin Huang; Lin Yang; Juan Liang; Jianwu Lan; Shaojian Lin

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.121932

Self-healing, environmentally stable and adhesive hydrogel sensor with conductive cellulose nanocrystals for motion monitoring and character recognition

Carbohydr Polym. 2024 May 15:332:121932. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.121932. Epub 2024 Feb 8.

Authors

Yafang Wang¹, Anrong Yao², Baojie Dou², Cuimin Huang², Lin Yang³, Juan Liang⁴, Jianwu Lan⁵, Shaojian Lin⁶

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China; High-Tech Organic Fibers Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610036, PR China.
² National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China.
³ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada.
⁴ High-Tech Organic Fibers Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610036, PR China.
⁵ National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China. Electronic address: lanjw@scu.edu.cn.
⁶ National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China; High-Tech Organic Fibers Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610036, PR China. Electronic address: sjlin@edu.cn.

PMID: 38431422
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.121932

Abstract

Conductive hydrogel-based sensors offer diverse applications in artificial intelligence, wearable electronic devices and character recognition management. However, it remains a significant challenge to maintain their satisfactory performances under extreme climatic conditions. Herein, a stretchable, self-adhesive, self-healing and environmentally stable conductive hydrogel was developed through free radical polymerization of hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) and poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (PEG) as the skeleton, followed by the incorporation of polyaniline-coated cellulose nanocrystal (CNC@PANI) as the conductive and reinforced nanofiller. Encouragingly, the as-prepared hydrogel (CHP) exhibited decent mechanical strength, satisfactory self-adhesion, prominent self-healing property (95.04 % after 60 s), excellent anti-freezing performance (below -60 °C) and outstanding moisture retention. The assembled sensor derived from CHP hydrogel possessed a low detection limit (0.5 % strain), high strain sensitivity (GF = 1.68) and fast response time (96 ms). Remarkably, even in harsh environmental temperatures from -60 °C to 80 °C, it reliably detected subtle and large-scale human motion for a long-term process (>10,000 cycles), manifesting its exceptional environmental tolerance. More interestingly, this hydrogel-based sensor could be assembled into a "writing board" for accurate handwritten numeral recognition. Therefore, the as-obtained multifunctional hydrogel could be a promising material applied in human motion detection and character recognition platforms even in harsh surroundings.

Keywords: Cellulose nanocrystal; Character recognition; Environmentally stable; Human motion monitoring; Hydrogel sensor; Self-healing.