Flexible, Programable Sensing System with Poly(Aam-HEMASA) For Human Motion Detection

Abstract

Conductive hydrogels are powerful material candidates for artificial skin and muscle, flexible and implantable bioelectronics, and tissue engineering. However, the preparation of highly conductive hydrogels without sacrificing their mechanical and electrical properties remains challenging. Herein, composites hydrogels (CAHSx) were prepared by in-situ polymerization with carbon nanotube (CNT) as conductive filler and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) as the conductive liquid uniformly dispersed in AAm-HEMA-SA (sodium alginate) hydrogel system. The elongation at break of CAHS6 (0.6 wt% CNT) reached 550%, which was much higher than pure PEDOT:PSS hydrogel. The developed hydrogel can withstand 6000 cycles of cyclic loading at 30% tensile strain without crack propagation. Practically, the conductive hydrogel was employed as a flexible strain sensor with excellent sensitivity, good durability, and repeatability, which meets the requirements of human joint motion detection. Additionally, our composites conductive hydrogels can also be synthesized by the direct ink writing (DIW) method to enrich the application range.