Tough, Crack-Resistant Ionogels Based on Chain Entanglement Structures for Health Monitoring Applications

The advent of flexible bioelectronics has revolutionized health monitoring by offering ergonomic and user-friendly solutions for timely and comprehensive health status assessments. However, flexible electronics relying on conventional ionogels suffer from limitations, such as insufficient toughness and poor energy dissipation, hindering their widespread adoption. Herein, high-performance ionogels with considerable toughness and crack resistance are developed based on the chain-entangled structures within a single network. These ionogels exhibit a remarkable fracture toughness of 1.24 ± 0.05 kJ/m2. Simultaneously, the crack-insensitive ionogels are stabilized after continuous cyclic stretching with a fatigue threshold of approximately 190 J/m2 due to hydrogen bonding, electrostatic interactions, and polymer chain entanglements. Furthermore, the ionogels with excellent ionic conductivity from −20 to 100 °C act as electrodes to facilitate continuous real-time monitoring of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, which is a promising candidate for applications in health monitoring fields such as ECG monitoring and sleep stage evaluation.