Large-Area Compliant, Low-Cost, and Versatile Pressure-Sensing Platform Based on Microcrack-Designed Carbon Black@Polyurethane Sponge for Human-Machine Interfacing

It is a challenge to manufacture pressure-sensing materials that possess flexibility, high sensitivity, large-area compliance, and capability to detect both tiny and large motions for the development of artificial intelligence products. Herein, a very simple and low-cost approach is proposed to fabricate versatile pressure sensors based on microcrack-designed carbon black (CB)@polyurethane (PU) sponges via natural polymer-mediated water-based layer-bylayer assembly. These sensors are capable of satisfying the requirements of ultrasmall as well as large motion monitoring. The versatility of these sensors benefits from two aspects: microcrack junction sensing mechanism for tiny motion detecting (91 Pa pressure, 0.2% strain) inspired by the spider sensory system and compressive contact of CB@PU conductive backbones for large motion monitoring (16.4 kPa pressure, 60% strain). Furthermore, these sensors exhibit excellent flexibility, fast response times (<20 ms), as well as good reproducibility over 50 000 cycles. This study also demonstrates the versatility of these sensors for various applications, ranging from speech recognition, health monitoring, bodily motion detection to artificial electronic skin. The desirable comprehensive performance of our sensors, which is comparable to the recently reported pressure-sensing devices, together with their significant advantages of low-cost, easy fabrication, especially versatility, makes them attractive in the future of artificial intelligence.