A flexible, antifreezing, and long-term stable cellulose ionic conductive hydrogel via one-step preparation for flexible electronic sensors

Haiyue Miao; Yiyang Liu; Chongyang Zheng; Xiaojuan Huang; Yidan Song; Lulu Tong; Changwu Dong; Xiaobin Fu; Hailong Huang; Min Ge; Hongtao Liu; Yuan Qian

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122936

A flexible, antifreezing, and long-term stable cellulose ionic conductive hydrogel via one-step preparation for flexible electronic sensors

Carbohydr Polym. 2025 Mar 1:351:122936. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122936. Epub 2024 Nov 30.

Authors

Haiyue Miao¹, Yiyang Liu², Chongyang Zheng³, Xiaojuan Huang³, Yidan Song⁴, Lulu Tong⁵, Changwu Dong⁵, Xiaobin Fu⁶, Hailong Huang⁷, Min Ge⁵, Hongtao Liu⁸, Yuan Qian⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Thorium Energy, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Shanghai 201800, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
² Phonon Science Research Center for Carbon Dioxide, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201210, China.
³ Department of Oral and Maxillofacial-Head & Neck Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200011, China.
⁴ Physics Department & Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, East China Normal University, North Zhongshan Road 3663, 200062 Shanghai, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Thorium Energy, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Shanghai 201800, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Thorium Energy, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Shanghai 201800, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁷ Key Laboratory of Thorium Energy, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Shanghai 201800, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁸ Key Laboratory of Thorium Energy, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Shanghai 201800, China. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 39778980
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122936

Abstract

Ionic conductive hydrogels have attracted great attention due to their good flexibility and conductivity in flexible electronic devices. However, because of the icing and water loss problems, the compatibility issue between the mechanical properties and conductivity of hydrogel electrolytes over a wide temperature range remains extremely challenging to achieve. Although, antifreezing/water-retaining additives could alleviate these problems, the reduced performance and complex preparation methods seriously limit their development. In this work, a simple strategy without additives was provided to prepare an ionic conductive cellulose hydrogel (ICH) in one step through molten salt hydrate. The hydrogel featured controllable mechanical properties (0.19 MPa - 0.67 MPa), high ionic conductivity (78.96 mS/cm), excellent freezing resistance (-80 °C). More importantly, due to the existing metal salts component, the ICH exhibited long-term stability in water-retention ability (75.6 %, after 90 days) and ionic conductivity (85 %, after 90 days) over a wide working temperature range (-80 °C to 40 °C). Benefiting from these advantages, the ICH exhibited excellent electromechanical performance in human movement detection and movement direction identification, indicating a promising apply for flexible electronic device.

Keywords: Body motion detection; Cellulose; Freezing resistance; Ionic conductive hydrogel; Long term stability; Molten salt hydrate.