Improved Foaming Performance of Thermoplastic Polyether Amide Elastomers via Chain Extension: Toward Self‐Powered Intelligent Footwear

Thermoplastic polyamide elastomers (TPAEs) with polyamide 6 (PA6) as hard segments and polyether amine as soft segments are successfully synthesized by one‐pot melt polycondensation, in which the tensile strength and elongation‐at‐break of the resulting TPAE with soft segment content of 43 wt% reached (27.54 ± 0.92) MPa and (508.10 ± 19.81)%, respectively. Subsequently, two different types of chain extenders Joncryl ADR 4468 ((ADR)/Hexamethylene Diisocyanate (HDI) trimer) are applied to enhance the molecular entanglement of TPAEs. It is found that ADR showed a better chain extension effect, the melt strength of TPAEs is improved significantly when the content of ADR is 5 wt%, in which the corresponding TPAE foam possessed outstanding compressive resilience and stability. Based on the excellent compression property, a contact‐separated triboelectric nanogenerator is assembled with the TPAEs foam as a friction layer, which demonstrated a high open‐circuit voltage of 20.4 V, short‐circuit current of 0.74 μA, power density of 0.18 W m −2 , and excellent durability. Overall, the prepared TPAE foams provided an avenue for the high‐performance and self‐powered intelligent footwear materials.