Beijing University of Chemical Technology Wan Pengbo ACS Nano: Repairable, degradable and conductive MXene nanocomposite hydrogel for multifunctional epidermal sensor

Conductive hydrogel has become a candidate material for epidermal sensors due to its similarity with biological tissues, good abrasion resistance and high accuracy of information collection. However, it is difficult for current hydrogel-based conductive epidermal sensors to simultaneously obtain long-term use of reliable health performance, robust mechanical properties, reduce the environmental degradability of electronic waste, and the ability to sense physiological stimuli and electrophysiological signals.
Recently, researcher Wan Pengbo of Beijing University of Chemical Technology reported a flexible, degradable, and self-healing epidermal sensor assembled from MXene-PAA-ACC hydrogel.

The main points of the article 1) MXene nanosheets with abundant surface functional groups (−OH, −F, −O, etc.) are added to the hydrogel polymer network to make the hydrogel have better mechanical properties and higher stretch performance. In addition, the supramolecular interaction between a large number of functional groups (−OH, −F, −O, etc.) on the surface of the MXene sheet and the carboxyl groups of PAA and Ca2+ makes MXene-PAA-ACC hydrogels have better self-healing properties .




2) It is worth noting that MXene-PAA-ACC hydrogel can be used as a wearable sensor to wirelessly monitor various physiological stimuli and electrophysiological signals of the human body, such as electromyography and electrocardiogram signals. At the same time, the good biocompatibility of MXene-PAA-ACC hydrogel also makes it a wearable skin epidermal sensor with potential application prospects.

This research provides guidance for the preparation of flexible wearable multifunctional epidermal sensors with reliable sensing performance, extremely fast response time (20 ms), strong self-healing, and good degradability. Machine interface equipment and other fields have potential application prospects. References Xiaobin Li, et al, Healable, Degradable, and Conductive MXene Nanocomposite Hydrogel for Multifunctional Epidermal Sensors, ACS Nano, 2021 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01751 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c01751