Mussel-inspired self-healing PDMS/AgNPs conductive elastomer with tunable mechanical properties and efficient antibacterial performances for wearable sensor

Abstract

The ability to accurately and stably monitor the electrical signals and present the information in time is very important for wearable strain sensors. At the same time, the mechanical properties of the sensor determine whether the product can be competent for more difficult tasks. However, it is still a challenge to develop strain sensors to overcome the contradiction between mechanical properties and repairability. Inspired by mussel, we prepared self-healing antibacterial organosilicon conductive elastomer with good mechanical properties . The mechanical properties of elastomers are controlled by hard and soft domains. The materials were further reinforced by adding AgNPs, and the elastomers containing 10 wt% nano fillers had classy tensile strength (2.4 MPa stress) and prominent stretchability (1762% strain). Due to multiple reversible interactions and dynamic disulfide bonds, the prepared elastomers had outstanding self-healing ability 91.2% at room temperature. The combination of the bactericidal effect of AgNPs and zinc ions with the bacteriostatic effect of hydrophobic surface endowed the conductive elastomer with efficient antibacterial performance. Furthermore, the developed elastomer can accurately monitor the bending motion of human joints. We believe that this kind of mussel-inspired self-healing conductive elastomer could provide inspiration for the design of strain sensors which can be used in the fields of medical equipment, movement monitoring and so on.