Ionically Conductive and Degradable Polyester Elastomers for Green Soft Mechanosensors

Conductive soft materials hold great promise for next-generation electronics. Herein, degradable polyester elastomers with tunable ionic conductivity, designed for ecofriendly flexible sensors, are developed. Ester-group-rich polymer backbones and ion-conductive networks are constructed to achieve balanced mechanical flexibility and ionic conductivity while retaining degradation ability. Optimized polyester elastomer exhibits an elongation at break of 360%, a conductivity of 3.45 × 10–4 S·m–1, and rapid degradation in alkaline environments (10 h). Strain sensors containing such an elastomer as key mechanical-electrical signal-conversion materials have achieved a high gauge factor of 1.3 in a strain range of 0–300%. In addition, such elastomers are also used in the fabrication of capacitive pressure sensors and piezoresistive pressure sensors. Monitoring of human motions and detection of subtle tactile interactions using the above flexible mechanosensors have been demonstrated. This work provides a kind of promising conductive soft material for future green electronics.