Wearable, Healable, and Adhesive Epidermal Sensors Assembled from Mussel‐Inspired Conductive Hybrid Hydrogel Framework

TLDR

The healable, adhesive, wearable, soft sensors show promise for wearable, wireless, and soft electronics in human–machine interfaces, activity monitoring, and healthcare. They are fabricated by coating conductive functionalized single‑wall carbon nanotube networks onto a supramolecularly cross‑linked hydrogel of polyvinyl alcohol and polydopamine, and are coupled to a wireless transmitter for real‑time monitoring. The assembled sensors self‑heal in 2 s with 99 % efficiency, adhere robustly, accurately detect a wide range of human motions, and are non‑cytotoxic, supporting cell attachment and proliferation.

Abstract

Abstract Healable, adhesive, wearable, and soft human‐motion sensors for ultrasensitive human–machine interaction and healthcare monitoring are successfully assembled from conductive and human‐friendly hybrid hydrogels with reliable self‐healing capability and robust self‐adhesiveness. The conductive, healable, and self‐adhesive hybrid network hydrogels are prepared from the delicate conformal coating of conductive functionalized single‐wall carbon nanotube (FSWCNT) networks by dynamic supramolecular cross‐linking among FSWCNT, biocompatible polyvinyl alcohol, and polydopamine. They exhibit fast self‐healing ability (within 2 s), high self‐healing efficiency (99%), and robust adhesiveness, and can be assembled as healable, adhesive, and soft human‐motion sensors with tunable conducting channels of pores for ions and framework for electrons for real time and accurate detection of both large‐scale and tiny human activities (including bending and relaxing of fingers, walking, chewing, and pulse). Furthermore, the soft human‐motion sensors can be enabled to wirelessly monitor the human activities by coupling to a wireless transmitter. Additionally, the in vitro cytotoxicity results suggest that the hydrogels show no cytotoxicity and can facilitate cell attachment and proliferation. Thus, the healable, adhesive, wearable, and soft human‐motion sensors have promising potential in various wearable, wireless, and soft electronics for human–machine interfaces, human activity monitoring, personal healthcare diagnosis, and therapy.