Polyvinyl alcohol/sodium alginate hybrid materials with high conductivity and transparency performance for woven electrode fibers

Transparent conductive fibers play a pivotal role in developing advanced smart textiles for the future. Due to high flexibility and transparency, ionic hydrogel fibers have attracted great attention. Among them, the physically cross-linked hydrogel possesses non-volatility and low cost, which makes it an attractive transparent conductive material. However, the current physical cross-linked hydrogel suffers from low conductivity, transparency, and weak mechanical strength. A novel hybrid cross-linking strategy for ionic hydrogel through wet spinning has been proposed to address these issues. In this study, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) crystallizes to form a homogeneous and robust polymer network with deep eutectic solvents (DESs) that substitute for water. Simultaneously, sodium alginate (SA) also interacts with metal ions in DESs to further form a crosslinked network, which enhances both the mechanical and conductivity. The as-prepared hydrogel fiber exhibited great all-around performances, including remarkable conductivity (2.28 S/m), transparency (92%), high strength (3.01 MPa), and toughness (5.65 MJ/m 3 ). Furthermore, we demonstrated a 3×3 electroluminescent textile display matrix woven with luminescent fibers as warp and the prepared hydrogel fibers as weft yarns, which exhibited the potential value of the hydrogel fibers in textiles.