All-Solid-State Ionic Conductive Elastomers from Poly(ionic liquid) Networks and Metal-Oxygen Interactions for...

Flexible conductive materials have emerged as ideal candidates for soft robots, wearable devices, and micro-nanogenerators. However, developing high-performance conductive materials that combine good stability, exceptional mechanical properties, self-healing capabilities, and high ionic conductivity remains a challenge. Here, an ionic conductive elastomer (ICE), composed of a poly(ionic liquid) network and lithium salts, is synthesized through a photopolymerization strategy. The decomposition temperatures of the ICEs are close to 308 °C, and the ICEs still exhibit good humidity stability at a relative humidity of 60%. The elastomer hosts lithium (Li+) cations and associated anions via lithium and hydrogen bonds, respectively. This design achieves an optimal balance between a tensile strength of 0.83 MPa and an elongation at break of 1960% while enabling efficient room-temperature self-healing ability. The combination of conductive poly(ionic liquid) and lithium salts enables the ICEs to exhibit a high ionic conductivity of 5.73 × 10-4 S m-1. The prepared ICEs also display sensitive and stable responses to strain and temperature, and they could serve as a triboelectric nanogenerator. This work provides a new design strategy for high-performance ICEs, showing great potential in flexible electronics and micro-nanogenerators.