Pure PEDOT:PSS hydrogels

By Baoyang Lu, Hyunwoo Yuk, Shaoting Lin, Nannan Jian, Kai Qu, Jingkun Xu, Xuanhe Zhao. Nature Communications, 2019

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Hydrogels of conducting polymers, particularly poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), provide a promising electrical interface with biological tissues for sensing and stimulation, owing to their favorable electrical and mechanical properties. While existing methods mostly blend PEDOT:PSS with other compositions such as non-conductive polymers, the blending can compromise resultant hydrogels’ mechanical and/or electrical properties. Here, we show that designing interconnected networks of PEDOT:PSS nanofibrils via a simple method can yield high-performance pure PEDOT:PSS hydrogels. The method involves mixing volatile additive dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) into aqueous PEDOT:PSS solutions followed by controlled dry-annealing and rehydration. The resultant hydrogels exhibit a set of properties highly desirable for bioelectronic applications, including high electrical conductivity (~20 S cm−1 in PBS, ~40 S cm−1 in deionized water), high stretchability (> 35% strain), low Young’s modulus (~2 MPa), superior mechanical, electrical and electrochemical stability, and tunable isotropic/anisotropic swelling in wet physiological environments. Hydrogels of conducting polymers provide an electrical interface with biological tissues for sensing and stimulation, but currently have compromised mechanical and electrical properties. Here, the authors show a simple method to achieve pure PEDOT:PSS hydrogels that exhibit superior mechanical and electrical properties, stability, and tunable swelling.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7af41fa187d23caa7f5bb94370263bface215dc9