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An intrinsically self-healing and biocompatible electroconductive hydrogel based on nanostructured nanocellulose-polyaniline complexes embedded in a viscoelastic polymer network towards flexible conductors and electrodes

2019; Elsevier BV; Volume: 318; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.electacta.2019.06.132

1873-3859

Jingquan Han, Qinqin Ding, Changtong Mei, Qinglin Wu, Yiying Yue, Xinwu Xu,

Electrospun Nanofibers in Biomedical Applications

Electroconductive hydrogels (ECHs) that integrate gel features and electrochemical properties are considered as promising tissue-like flexible materials important for broad applications. Nevertheless, realizing the synergistic features of self-healing capability, conductivity, biocompatibility, stretchability and malleability is challenging. Herein, a novel kind of versatile ECHs built on a borax-crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel system and conducting [email protected] (polyaniline-cellulose nanofiber) nanocomplexes which synergize the conductivity of PANI and the template feature of CNFs is reported. The [email protected] nanocomplexes are firstly prepared via in situ polymerization of anilines on CNFs, which are then evenly distributed into borax-crosslinked PVA gel system to fabricate free-standing [email protected] composite ECHs. Sustainable and renewable CNFs serve as flexible biotemplates and mediate the development of PANI into integrated [email protected] with good dispersity, enabling the establishment of an integrated conducting and reinforcing network. The dynamic multi-complexation and chain entanglements between [email protected] complexes, borax and PVA chains contribute to the development of a hierarchical network structure. The maximum compression stress (∼48.8 kPa) and storage modulus (∼31.5 kPa) of [email protected] hydrogel are about 3.5 and 400 times greater than those of pure PVA gel. These hydrogels also demonstrate appealing biocompatibility, mouldability, pH sensitivity, thermo-reversibility and fast self-healing ability within 15s. The hydrogel-based electrode with a conductivity of ∼5.2 S m−1 shows a maximum specific capacitance of 226.1 F g−1 and a capacitance retention of 74% after 3000 cycles. The integration of such remarkable features enables the promising applications of the as-prepared versatile ECHs in flexible, self-healing and implantable electronic devices.