Universal Stretchable Conductive Cellulose/PEDOT:PSS Hybrid Films for Low Hysteresis Multifunctional Stretchable Electronics

Abstract

Skin-attachable conductive materials have attracted significant attention for use in wearable devices and physiological monitoring applications. Soft, skin-like conductive films must have excellent mechanical and electrical characteristics with on skin conformability, stretchability, and robustness to detect body motion and biological signals. In this study, a conductive, stretchable, hydro-biodegradable, and highly robust cellulose/poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) hybrid film is fabricated. Through the synergetic interplay of a conductivity enhancer, nonionic fluorosurfactant, and surface modifier, the mechanical and electrical properties of the stretchable hybrid film are greatly improved. The stretchable cellulose/PEDOT:PSS hybrid film achieves a limited resistance change of only 1.21-fold after 100 stretch-release cycles (30% strain) with exceptionally low hysteresis, demonstrating its great potential as a stretchable electrode for stretchable electronics. In addition, the film shows excellent biodegradability, promising environmental friendliness, and safety benefits. High-performance stretchable cellulose/PEDOT:PSS hybrid films, which have high biocompatibility and sensitivity, are applied to human skin to serve as on skin multifunctional sensors. The conformally mounted on-skin sensors are capable of continuously monitoring human physiological signals, such as body motions, drinking, respiration rates, vocalization, humidity, and temperature, with high sensitivity, fast responses, and low power consumption (21 mu W). The highly conductive hybrid films developed in this study can be integrated as both stretchable electrodes and multifunctional healthcare monitoring sensors. We believe that the highly robust stretchable, conductive, biodegradable, skin-attachable cellulose/PEDOT:PSS hybrid films are worthy candidates as promising soft conductive materials for stretchable electronics.