An intrinsically self-healing and biocompatible electroconductive hydrogel based on nanostructured nanocellulose-polyaniline complexes embedded in a viscoelastic polymer network towards flexible conductors and electrodes
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-20-2019
Abstract
Electroconductive hydrogels (ECHs) that integrate gel features and electrochemical properties are considered as promising tissue-like flexible materials important for broad applications. Nevertheless, realizing the synergistic features of self-healing capability, conductivity, biocompatibility, stretchability and malleability is challenging. Herein, a novel kind of versatile ECHs built on a borax-crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel system and conducting PANI@CNF (polyaniline-cellulose nanofiber) nanocomplexes which synergize the conductivity of PANI and the template feature of CNFs is reported. The PANI@CNF nanocomplexes are firstly prepared via in situ polymerization of anilines on CNFs, which are then evenly distributed into borax-crosslinked PVA gel system to fabricate free-standing PANI@CNF-PVA composite ECHs. Sustainable and renewable CNFs serve as flexible biotemplates and mediate the development of PANI into integrated PANI@CNF with good dispersity, enabling the establishment of an integrated conducting and reinforcing network. The dynamic multi-complexation and chain entanglements between PANI@CNF complexes, borax and PVA chains contribute to the development of a hierarchical network structure. The maximum compression stress (∼48.8 kPa) and storage modulus (∼31.5 kPa) of PANI@CNF-PVA hydrogel are about 3.5 and 400 times greater than those of pure PVA gel. These hydrogels also demonstrate appealing biocompatibility, mouldability, pH sensitivity, thermo-reversibility and fast self-healing ability within 15s. The hydrogel-based electrode with a conductivity of ∼5.2 S m−1 shows a maximum specific capacitance of 226.1 F g−1 and a capacitance retention of 74% after 3000 cycles. The integration of such remarkable features enables the promising applications of the as-prepared versatile ECHs in flexible, self-healing and implantable electronic devices.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Electrochimica Acta
First Page
660
Last Page
672
Recommended Citation
Han, J., Ding, Q., Mei, C., Wu, Q., Yue, Y., & Xu, X. (2019). An intrinsically self-healing and biocompatible electroconductive hydrogel based on nanostructured nanocellulose-polyaniline complexes embedded in a viscoelastic polymer network towards flexible conductors and electrodes. Electrochimica Acta, 318, 660-672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2019.06.132