A Stretchable, Attachable, and Transparent Polyionic Ecological Skin for Robust Self-Powered Interactive Sensing

Abstract

Bioinspired energy-autonomous interactive electronics are prevalent. However, self-powered artificial skins are often challenging to be combined with excellent mechanical properties, optical transparency, autonomous attachability, and biocompatibility. Herein, a robust ecological polyionic skin (polyionic eco-skin) based on triboelectric mechanism consisting of ethyl cellulose/waterborne polyurethane/Cu nanoparticles (EWC) green electroactive sensitive material and polyethylene oxide/waterborne polyurethane/phytic acid (PWP) polyionic current collector is proposed. The polyionic eco-skin features sufficient stretchability (90%) and low Young's modulus (0.8 MPa) close to that of human soft tissue, high transparency (> 84% of transmission) in the visible light range, and broad static/dynamic adhesiveness, which endows it with strong adaptive implementation capacity in flexible curved electronics. More importantly, the self-powered polyionic eco-skin exhibits enhanced force-electric conversion performance by coordinating the effect of nanoparticle-polymer interfacial polarization and porous structure of sensitive material. Integrating multiple characteristics enables the polyionic eco-skin to effectively convert biomechanical energy into electrical energy, supporting self-powered functionality for itself and related circuits. Moreover, the eco-skin can be utilized to construct an interactive system and realize the remote noncontact manipulation of targets. The polyionic eco-skin holds tremendous application potential in self-powered security systems, human-machine interaction interfaces, and bionic robots, which is expected to inject new vitality into a human-cyber-physical intelligence integration.

Keywords

interactive sensing / multiple feature integration / polyionic eco-skins / triboelectricity / user-friendliness

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RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2024 The Author(s). Interdisciplinary Materials published by Wuhan University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.