Conductive and room-temperature self-healable polydimethylsiloxane-based elastomer film with ridge-like microstructure for piezoresistive pressure sensor

Abstract

The fabrication of piezoresistive pressure sensor with self-healing function has attracted worldwide attention for its great prospects in intelligent robots, remote health monitoring and electronic skin. In this work, a conductive and self-healable elastomer (CSE) film with ridge-like microstructure was designed for flexible piezoresistive pressure sensor. Firstly, self-healable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based elastomer with ureido and imine groups was synthesized via a simple one-pot two-step polycondensation reaction with aminopropyl-terminated PDMS, isophorone diisocyanate and 1, 3, 5-triformylbenzene as monomers. Secondly, the synthesized PDMS-based elastomer solution was casted onto a sandpaper pre-sprayed with ureido pyrimidinone grafted carbon nanotubes/polyurea mixed solution, and the CSE film was obtained after drying and peeling off from the sandpaper. The piezoresistive pressure sensor fabricated with two single-electrode CSE films exhibited high sensitivity of 8.7 kPa−1 (0–6.1 kPa), low detection limit (50 Pa), fast response capability (response/relaxation time of 40/117 ms) and repeatability for 10,000 loading–unloading tests. Moreover, the sensor was able to fully recover to normal work after healing for 36 h at room temperature or even 200 s under the irradiation of near infrared (NIR) light. Importantly, the sensor was successfully applied for not only detecting human motions including radial pulse, speech recognitions and joint movements but also monitoring health status wirelessly through Bluetooth transmission. Our findings put forward a novel method to fabricate a high-performance self-healable piezoresistive sensor for wearable electronics, healthcare monitoring and electronic skin.