Ultra-Stretchable Self-Healing Mixed Conductive Polymer Composite with Silver Nanowires Showing Increased Mechanical Performance

Effective wearable sensors, stretchable electronics, and soft robotics materials must have a sufficiently high balance of conductivity, stretchability, and robustness. Intrinsically conductive polymers offer a critical step toward improving wearable sensor materials due to their tunable conductivity, soft/compliant nature, and ability to complex with other synergistic molecules (e.g., polyacids, small molecule dopants). The addition of nanofillers offers the potential to improve the properties of these polymer composite for soft robotics and wearable applications. While nanofillers typically increase conductivity at the expensive of mechanical properties, here we show an increase in mechanical properties, which the interface between the polymer matrix and the AgNW is hypothesized to be integral for the formation of an active network. These form a polymer nanocomposite with high electronic sensitivity, unprecedented mechanical properties (a maximum strain of 4693% at ambient humidity; ~52 RH%), and repeatable, autonomous self-healing efficiencies of greater than 98%. To illustrate the remarkable sensitivity, the material was employed as a biomedical sensor (pulse, voice recognition, motion), topographical sensor, and high sensitivity sensor.