A Superhydrophobic Hydrogel for Self-Healing and Robust Strain Sensor with Liquid Impalement Resistance

The superhydrophobic strain sensor is a fantastic direction,which could protect the strain sensor in harsh environment.Nevertheless,the self-healing superhydrophobic strain sensor has not been reported.In this research,we developed a superhydrophobic strain sensor,which demonstrated excellent self-healing,mechanical robustness,and liquid impalement resistance simultaneously.The key innovation is to partially embed hydrophobic graphene and carbon nanotubes into the hydrogel matrix.The hodrogel substrate endows the sample with self-healing property.The graphene,carbon nanotubes and hydrogel together lead to an accurate and real-time monitoring of human motion.Furthermore,the prepared sample demonstrated super-robust superhydrophobicity,which retained superhydrophobicity after many kinds of damage(such as 1000%stretch,10000 stretching-releasing cycles,hand-rub,tape-peeling,and high-speed drop/jet impact).