Silk fibroin-based hydrogels with low hysteresis, self-adhesion, and tunable ionic conductivity for wearable devices.

Silk Fibroin (SF) hydrogels are easy to functionalize and possess biocompatibility, making them highly promising for the development of flexible electronic devices and wearable equipment. However, fabricating SF-based hydrogels with multiple functions such as low hysteresis, self-adhesion, and high elasticity, while constructing flexible wearable electronic devices with high sensitivity and fidelity, remains a challenge to date. To address these issues, this work reports a one-step preparation of a fully polymer-based triple-network hydrogel through precursor solution pH pre-regulation, with polyacrylamide (PAM) as a brittle network, methyl cellulose (MC) as a tough network, and SF as a zwitterionic macromolecule.

A high-pressure resistant ternary network hydrogel based flexible strain sensor with a uniaxially oriented porous structure toward gait detection.

Gait abnormalities have been widely investigated in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. However, it is still a great challenge to achieve a comfortable, convenient, sensitive and high-pressure resistant flexible gait detection sensor for real-time health monitoring. In this work, a polyaniline (PANI)@(polyacrylic acid (PAA)-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)) (PANI@(PVA-PAA)) ternary network hydrogel with a uniaxially oriented porous featured structure was successfully prepared using a simple freeze-thaw method and polymerization.