Spider silk-like strong and adhesive eutectogel fibers fabricated via a continuous spinning-polymerization process

Abstract

Conductive hydrogel fibers exhibit considerable potential in wearable and flexible electronics; however, they still encounter numerous challenges, including unsatisfactory mechanical properties, poor environmental tolerance and weak adhesion strength. Particularly their continuous fabrication is thorny due to the limited spinnability of precursor monomer solutions. Herein, by replacing conventional H₂O with deep eutectic solvent, the viscosity of precursor monomer solutions is enhanced, accelerating the polymerization process, thereby enabling continuous spinning of eutectogel fibers through a straightforward photopolymerization method. With introduction of α-helical peptide segments for energy dissipation, mechanical properties of eutectogel fiber were significantly improved, with high elongation at break (1420 %), good tensile strength (720 kPa), superior resilience (>95 % at 500 % strain) and excellent defect tolerance. Benefit from multiple classes of polar groups introduced by peptides and deep eutectic solvents, eutectogel fibers also exhibit good adhesive strength (0.85 MPa), which can be woven into a net to catch flies like natural spider silk. Besides, eutectogel fibers exhibited outstanding environmental tolerance and good ionic conductivity. Combined properties above, spider silk-like strong and adhesive eutectogel fibers were successfully used for real-time monitoring of human motions, body temperature and surface electromyography signals, demonstrating high potential in wearable health monitoring devices.