High-resilience, anti-freezing, and vacuum-tolerant eutectogel for self-powered pressure sensing in extreme environments
摘要
With the rapid development of the Internet of Things and smart sensing technologies, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) offer new efficient energy harvesting solutions for self-powered sensors. However, traditional TENG materials exhibit limited mechanical durability, environmental stability, and sensing performance under extreme conditions. Therefore, this study develops a novel eutectogel based on a deep eutectic solvent (DES) and poly(itaconic acid-co-2-hydroxyethyl acrylate) (P(IA-co-HEA)) polymer network. The careful molecular design and microstructural modification of this system result in a eutectogel with low hysteresis, excellent resilience (97.8%), high conductivity (48.02 mS m−1), and strong adhesive strength. Owing to the low freezing point and low volatility of the DES, the P(IA-co-HEA) eutectogel maintains 75.7% and 69.4% tensile and compressive resilience, respectively, at −40 °C. Moreover, no significant change in resilience is observed after 24 h of storage under a −0.1 MPa vacuum environment. A self-powered TENG pressure sensor containing the developed eutectogel demonstrates a fast response time (16 ms) and stable signal output over 16000 contact-separation cycles. In addition, the sensor operates reliably at −60 °C and vacuum (−0.1 MPa) conditions. The high resilience of the flexible self-powered sensor makes it suitable for use in extreme environments, supporting long-term, reliable pressure monitoring.