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

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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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