It can be envisaged that in the future, wearable electronics will be skin-like and “unfeelable”. High stretchability (strain > 100%), skin-like Young's modulus ( 900%). The hydrogels could withstand over 15 000 cycles of 200% stretching–releasing at high speed. The Young's modulus was about 8 kPa. The strain sensitivity of these “skin-like” hydrogels confirmed that the relative change in electric resistance increased to 700% with 400% stretching, showing good exponential fitting with 0.9997 of R-square. Furthermore, the strain sensor could maintain high transparency with transmittance of 87%. These combined important features make these hydrogels potentially useful for transparent strain sensors, skin-mountable electrics, and flexible conductors in the fields of artificial skins and stretchable electronics.
10 February 2017 in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
The underwater superoleophobicity of a coating is often caused by its preferential water affinity, which, however, normally weakens the substrate adhesion property. In this work, a new strategy is reported for achieving strong underwater adhesion between a well‐designed amphiphilic polyurethane coating and a diverse range of substrates while also rendering the coating surface's superoleophobicity. When the coating, which is a mixture of an amphiphilic polyurethane and a water miscible solvent, is immersed in water, the hydrophobic segments aggregate to orientate and pile along the surface of substrates via a segment orientation mechanism triggered by solvent exchange with water penetration to exert strong adhesion. At the same time, the hydrophilic segments will physically crosslink to form a hydrogel coating, endowing the substrate with underwater superoleophobicity. This work provides a facile, versatile, and scalable approach for the future design of superoleophobic coatings in a water environment.