High Performance and Deformable Ionic Sensory Platform by Tailoring Gelator Design

Here, we propose versatile ionic conductors for high-performance, deformable and functional ionic sensory platforms by tailoring the mechanical properties of ionic conductors. For instance, porous ion gels simply fabricated by sugar cube can be effectively deformed by closing pores even with small pressure, a broad variation in the contact surface area of the porous ion gel and electrodes is induced, leading to a dramatic difference in electrical double layer (EDL) capacitance. More interestingly, the functionality of the porous ion gel is extended to include electrochemiluminescence (ECL), resulting in the production of emissive ECL ionoskins. Furthermore, the deformability of ionic conductors is tailored by using binary polymer blends as the co-gelators. To reduce the polymer chain entanglement of polymer gelators and induce effective dissipation of applied stresses, flexible and low glass-transition temperature(Tg) polymer is additionally doped into the relatively hard and high Tg polymer based-ionic conductors. The optimized ternary blend ionic conductors exhibit outstanding stretchability, mechanical elasticity and durability, indicating high feasibility for strain sensory systems.