Mussel-Inspired Highly Sensitive, Stretchable, and Self-Healable Yarns Enabled by Dual Conductive Pathways and Encapsulation for Wearable Electronics

Abstract

Wearable electronic textiles, capable of detecting human motions and recognizing gestures, represent the forefront of personalized electronics. However, the integration of high stretchability, sensitivity, durability, and self-healable/self-bondable capabilities into one platform remains challenging. Herein, mussel-inspired stretchable, sensitive, and self-healable/self-bonded conductive yarns enabled by dual electron transfer pathways and dual encapsulation technology are presented. Specifically, covered spandex yarns provide the necessary stretchability and adsorption capacity, while supramolecular polydopamine layer affords enhanced interfacial interactions. Reduced graphene oxide nanosheets and silver nanoparticle-based sensing layers offer dual electron transfer pathways. Dual encapsulations with self-healable/self-bondable ability not only mitigate the crack propagation but also protect inner conductive materials from detachment. Benefiting from these rational designs, the composite yarns exhibit a large sensing range (158% strain), high sensitivity (22.88), low detection limit (0.0345%), fast response/recovery times (105/150 ms), and remarkable robustness (enduring 10 000 cycles at 20% strain). Furthermore, pressure sensors and sensing arrays are assembled by stacking conductive yarns perpendicularly using a self-bondable function, and self-healable helical-structured conductors are fabricated through the shape-memory effect. Important applications of multifunctional yarns in physiological motion detection, gesture recognition, and circuit connection are demonstrated. This concept creates opportunities for the construction of multifunctional and high-performance wearable electronic textiles.