Kirigami-Inspired 3D-Printable MXene Organohydrogels for Soft Electronics

Fengling Zhou, Jian Zhou*, Ying Liu, Jianfei Xie, Hui Chen, Xiaozhi Wang, Jikui Luo, Yongqing (Richard) Fu, Ahmed Elmarakbi, Huigao Duan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Conductive hydrogels are compelling materials for the development of soft electronics; however, their essential attributes such as high sensitivity, excellent stretchability, and environmental stability have rarely been achieved simultaneously in one hydrogel. Herein, a Kirigami-inspired strategy is proposed to improve organohydrogel sensitivity without sacrificing their mechanical stretchability and environmental stability . The organohydrogels with multiple interpenetrating networks are synthesized by introducing sodium alginate nanofibrils and conductive MXene nanoflakes into polymer double networks infiltrated with glycerol–water mixtures, featuring remarkable stretchability (>5000%), good sensitivity, and water retention (>30 days). The Kirigami structures are further applied to enhance strain sensitivity, achieving a gauge factor of 29.1, which is ≈5.5 times that of an unstructured organohydrogel. Using the Kirigami-inspired sensors, a durable glove is developed for grabbing underwater objects through operating a robotic arm, demonstrating a subaqueous interactive human–machine interfacing.Meanwhile, by integrating the wearable sensor with a machine learning algorithm, a wearable Morse code intelligent recognition system is demonstrated, enabling real-time conversion of Morse code signs into speech with superior recognition accuracy (>99%) and fast response time (≈17 ms). This work offers a new route to synthesize highly sensitive, stretchable, and extremely tolerant organohydrogels, providing a promising platform for next-generation soft electronics.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2308487
Number of pages13
JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
Volume33
Issue number52
Early online date15 Sept 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Dec 2023

Keywords

  • Kirigami-inspired
  • Morse code
  • human–machine interfaces
  • organohydrogels
  • wearable sensor

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