Facile One-Pot Preparation of Polypyrrole-Incorporated Conductive Hydrogels for Human Motion Sensing

Abstract

Conductive hydrogels have been widely used in soft robotics, as well as skin-attached and implantable bioelectronic devices. Among the candidates of conductive fillers, conductive polymers have become popular due to their intrinsic conductivity, high biocompatibility, and mechanical flexibility. However, it is still a challenge to construct conductive polymer-incorporated hydrogels with a good performance using a facile method. Herein, we present a simple method for the one-pot preparation of conductive polymer-incorporated hydrogels involving rapid photocuring of the hydrogel template followed by slow in situ polymerization of pyrrole. Due to the use of a milder oxidant, hydrogen peroxide, for polypyrrole synthesis, the photocuring of the hydrogel template and the growing of polypyrrole proceeded in an orderly manner, making it possible to prepare conductive polymer-incorporated hydrogels in one pot. The preparation process is facile and extensible. Moreover, the obtained hydrogels exhibit a series of properties suitable for biomedical strain sensors, including good conductivity (2.49 mS/cm), high stretchability (>200%), and a low Young’s modulus (~30 kPa) that is compatible with human skin.