Skin-Inspired Healable Conductive Elastomers with Exceptional Strain-Adaptive Stiffening and Damage Tolerance

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.1c01976
• Publication Date: 2021-11-15T22:34:42Z
• Authors: Xiaohan Wang; Yong-lei Wang; Xiao Yang; Zhongyuan Lu; Yongfeng Men; Junqi Sun
• Keywords: Stiffening

Stretchable conductive elastomers play an irreplaceable role in flexible electronic devices. However, stretchable are usually soft and susceptible to damage. In this study, inspired from skin, highly elastic integrated with damage resistance, tolerance, healability fabricated by loading ionic liquids (ILs) within the polyurethane (PU) of multiblock polymers poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)/polycaprolactone (PCL) coordinated Zn2+ ions. The mechanically robust elastomer, a tensile strength ∼15.2 MPa stretchability ∼2668%, has satisfactory conductivity 2.9 × 10–4 S cm–1. elastomer exhibits exceptional strain-adaptive stiffening, ∼100-fold increase modulus when being fully stretched. stiffening endows excellent resistance. Meanwhile, record-high fracture energy ∼33.8 kJ m–2. notched can prevent propagation notch up strain ∼2400%. tolerance originate situ formed phase-separated domains, which deformable disintegrable under external force significantly strengthen dissipate energy. Furthermore, be conveniently healed heating restore its original mechanical properties.