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A Bioinspired Mineral Hydrogel as a Self-Healable, Mechanically Adaptable Ionic Skin for Highly Sensitive Pressure
Zhouyue Lei1, Quankang Wang2, Shengtong Sun3
1State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science and Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Abstract:
In the past two decades, artificial skin-like materials have received increasing research interests for their broad applications in artificial intelligence, wearable devices, and soft robotics. However, profound challenges remain in terms of imitating human skin because of its unique combination of mechanical and sensory properties. In this work, a bioinspired mineral hydrogel is developed to fabricate a novel type of mechanically adaptable ionic skin sensor. Due to its unique viscoelastic properties, the hydrogel-based capacitive sensor is compliant, self-healable, and can sense subtle pressure changes, such as a gentle finger touch, human motion, or even small water droplets. It might not only show great potential in applications such as artificial intelligence, human/machine interactions, personal healthcare, and wearable devices, but also promote the development of next-generation mechanically adaptable intelligent skin-like devices.