Flexible Accelerated-Wound-Healing Antibacterial MXene-Based Epidermic Sensor for Intelligent Wearable Human-Machine Interaction

Flexible epidermic sensors made from conductive hydrogels are holding bright potential in personalized healthcare, multifunctional electronic skins, and human-machine interfaces. However, it is still a great challenge to simultaneously realize conductive hydrogel-based epidermic sensors with reliable self-healing ability and remarkable sensing performances in high-performance healthcare (especially electrophysiological signals) sensing for wearable human-machine interaction, as well as accelerated wound healing for subsequent medical treatment together. Herein, a flexible healable high-performance epidermic sensor is assembled from the facilely prepared antibacterial MXene hydrogel with efficiently accelerated wound healing for sensitively wearable human-machine interaction. The as-prepared hydrogel possesses enhanced mechanical performance, outstanding healable capability, reliable injectability, facile degradability, excellent biocompatibility, and robust antibacterial ability, which is capable of being assembled into a multifunctional epidermic sensor to sensitively monitor human movements for rehabilitation training, to detect tiny electrophysiological signals for the diagnosis of cardiovascular- and muscle-related diseases, and to be employed for wearable human-machine interaction. In addition, the hydrogel can be utilized to treat wound infection and can effectively accelerate wound healing. Thus, it sheds light on preparing flexible healable epidermic sensors with multifunctional integration of personal health diagnosis and smart medical treatment for wearable human-machine interaction and next-generation artificial skins.

Automated summary

Flexible epidermic sensors made from conductive hydrogels have great potential in personalized healthcare, multifunctional electronic skins, and human-machine interfaces. However, it is challenging to achieve reliable self-healing ability and remarkable sensing performances in high-performance healthcare sensing and accelerated wound healing. In this study, a flexible healable high-performance epidermic sensor is assembled using antibacterial MXene hydrogel, which can efficiently accelerate wound healing and enable sensitive wearable human-machine interaction.