Self-healing carrageenan-driven Polyacrylamide hydrogels for strain sensing

Conductive hydrogels have attached considerable attention due to their good stretchability, excellent conductivity when they are applied in soft electronics. However, to fabricate a flexible hydrogel sensor with excellent toughness and good self-healing properties remains a challenge. In this work, we assembled a dual physical-crosslinking (DPC) ionic conductive polyacrylamide/carrageenan double-network (DN) hydrogel. This hydrogel has excellent fracture tensile stress and toughness, and demonstrates rapid self-recovery and self-healing ability due to the unique dual physical-crosslinking structures. Besides, the hydrogel is highly conductive by adding some conductive ions. As a result, the hydrogel-based sensor can stably detect human motions and physiological signals. The work provides novel ideas for the development of flexible sensing devices.