A supramolecular biomimetic skin combining a wide spectrum of mechanical properties and multiple sensory capabilities

By Zhouyue Lei, Peiyi Wu. Nature Communications, 2018

441 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Biomimetic skin-like materials, capable of adapting shapes to variable environments and sensing external stimuli, are of great significance in a wide range of applications, including artificial intelligence, soft robotics, and smart wearable devices. However, such highly sophisticated intelligence has been mainly found in natural creatures while rarely realized in artificial materials. Herein, we fabricate a type of biomimetic iontronics to imitate natural skins using supramolecular polyelectrolyte hydrogels. The dynamic viscoelastic networks provide the biomimetic skin with a wide spectrum of mechanical properties, including flexible reconfiguration ability, robust elasticity, extremely large stretchability, autonomous self-healability, and recyclability. Meanwhile, polyelectrolytes’ ionic conductivity allows multiple sensory capabilities toward temperature, strain, and stress. This work provides not only insights into dynamic interactions and sensing mechanism of supramolecular iontronics, but may also promote the development of biomimetic skins with sophisticated intelligence similar to natural skins. Biomimetic skin finds wide application in robotics and smart wearable devices but materials mimicking mechanical properties of skin and responding at the same time to multiple stimuli are rarely realized. Here the authors demonstrate a biomimetic hydrogel with multiple sensory capabilities which imitates mechanical properties of natural skin.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f40707b9de85b18a834080bfa8e9b17962018b7a