Spider-silk-inspired self-healing conductive elastomer for joint rehabilitation detection and tactile temperature warning

Flexible and self-healing ion-conductive materials show potential advantages in wearable health monitoring systems based on the internet of things (IoT). However, their practical applications are limited by the directional selectivity and detection range of the sensor. Here, a room-temperature self-healing, ion-conductive polyurethane elastomer that shows excellent mechanical properties, high conductivity, bidirectional sensing and thermoelectric properties was synthesized. Due to the presence of multiple hydrogen bonds, it can effectively dissipate energy through the destruction and recombination of multiple reversible hydrogen bonds, achieving a high mechanical strength (34 MPa) and excellent room-temperature self-healing ability (self-healing efficiency of 91.4%). Significantly, the synergistic monitoring of strain, temperature, and thermoelectricity can be realized based on the existence of the synergistic ion/electron-conductive components of the self-healing ion-conductive elastomer. The strain module enables bi-directional monitoring and high sensitivity (GF ∼ 5.23). Additionally, the temperature module has a resistance temperature coefficient of 2.42, while the thermoelectric module provides a power density of 1.59 mW m^-1 K^-2. Furthermore, leveraging the photon-thermal-electric coupling effect, a non-contact photoelectric sensor is fabricated, which can realize high-temperature detection/protection. As a wearable electronic device, it shows advantages in joint rehabilitation monitoring systems and prevention/monitoring systems.