Flexible, stretchable and conductive PVA/PEDOT:PSS composite hydrogels prepared by SIPN strategy

Publication date: Available online 9 November 2019Source: Polymer TestingAuthor(s): Yun-Fei Zhang, Ming-Ming Guo, Ya Zhang, Chak Yin Tang, Can Jiang, Yuqing Dong, Wing-Cheung Law, Fei-Peng DuAbstractStretchable conductive hydrogels have received significant attention due to their possibility of being utilized in wearable electronics and healthcare devices. In this work, a semi-interpenetrating polymer network (SIPN) strategy was employed to fabricate a set of flexible, stretchable and conductive composite hydrogels composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in the presence of glutaraldehyde as the crosslinker, HCl as the catalyst and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) as the conductive medium. The results from FTIR, Raman, SEM and TGA indicate that a chemical crosslinking network and interactions of PVA and PEDOT:PSS exist in the SIPN hydrogels. The swelling ratio of hydrogels decreased with increasing content of PEDOT:PSS. Due to the chemical crosslinking network and interactions of PVA and PEDOT:PSS, PVA networks semi-interpenetrated with PEDOT:PSS exhibited excellent tensile and compression properties. The tensile strength and elongation at breakage of the composite hydrogels with 0.14 wt% PEDOT:PSS were 70 KPa and 239%, respectively. The compression stress of the composite hydrogels with 0.14 wt% PEDOT:PSS at a strain of 50% was about 216 KPa. The electrical conductivity of the hydrogels increased with increasing PEDOT:PSS content. The flex...

Source: Polymer Testing - November 10, 2019 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research