A Stretchable Conductive Material with High Fatigue Resistance for Strain Sensors

Abstract

Intrinsically stretchable conductive materials based on elastic substrates and conductive components play important roles in biomedical applications, such as exercise rehabilitation monitoring and disease prediction. A persistent challenge is to combine high fatigue resistance with excellent mechanical properties in stretchable conductive materials. Herein, we present a stretchable conductive material with both good fatigue resistance and high tensile properties (∼3170%) based on poly(acrylic acid)-phytic acid-trehalose-polypyrrole (denoted as PPTP). The as-prepared PPTP hydrogel electrode showed no obvious cracking or delamination after 400 loading and unloading cycles and maintained good electrical signal transmission function after 1000 cycles. We further collected stable signals for human motion and handwriting using the stretchable hydrogel electrode as a strain sensor, demonstrating the potential application of the PPTP stretchable hydrogel electrode in biomedicine.