Multifunctional Organohydrogel with Ultralow-Hysteresis, Ultrafast-Response, and Whole-Strain-Range Linearity for Self-Powered Sensors

The conductive hydrogels always suffered from high internal friction, large hysteresis, and low capability of accurately predicting physical deformation, which seriously restricted their application in smart wearable devices. To address these problems, solvent molecules are directionally inserted into the polymer molecule chains via bridge effect to effectively reduce the molecular internal friction. Moreover, swelling is also combined to eliminate the temporary entanglements in the hydrogel system. The cooperation between the bridge and swollen effect endows the prepared polyacrylamide (PAM)/laponite/H3BO3/ethylene glycol (Eg) organohydrogel (PLBOH) ultralow hysteresis (1.38%, epsilon = 100%), ultrafast response (approximate to 10 ms), and high linearity in the whole-strain-range (R-2 = 0.996) with a great sensitivity (GF = 2.68 at the strain range of 0-750%). Meanwhile, the prepared PL10B30OH exhibits long-term stability, excellent stretchability, and low dissipated energy. Furthermore, the assembled triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) displays an outstanding energy harvesting performance with an output voltage of 200 V with the size of 20 mm x 20 mm. The assembled strain sensors can monitor the small strain of facial expressions and large strain of human movements, indicating the tremendous applications in self-powered intelligent and flexible wearable electronics under harsh environmental conditions.