A stretchable, self-healing, okra polysaccharide-based hydrogel for fast-response and ultra-sensitive strain sensors

Self-healing conductive hydrogels have attracted widespread attention as a new generation of smart wearable devices and human motion monitoring sensors. To improve the biocompatibility and degradability of such strain sensors, we report a sensor with a sandwich structure based on a biomucopolysaccharide hydrogel. The sensor was constructed with a stretchable self-healing hydrogel composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), okra polysaccharide (OP), borax, and a conductive layer of silver nanowires. The obtained OP/PVA/borax hydrogel exhibited excellent stretchability (similar to 1073.7%) and self-healing ability (93.6% within 5 min), and the resultant hydrogel-based strain sensor demonstrated high sensitivity (gauge factor = 6.34), short response time (similar to 20 ms), and good working stability. This study provides innovative ideas for the development of biopolysaccharide hydrogels for applications in the field of sensors.

Automated summary

This study reports a sandwich-structure sensor based on biomucopolysaccharide hydrogel, which exhibits excellent stretchability, self-healing ability, high sensitivity, short response time, and good working stability. It provides innovative ideas for the development of biopolysaccharide hydrogels for sensor applications.