To date, various stretchable conductors have been fabricated, but simultaneous realization of the transparency, high stretchability, electrical conductivity, self-healing capability, and sensing property through a simple, fast, cost-efficient approach is still challenging. Here, α-lipoic acid (LA), a naturally small biological molecule found in humans and animals, is used to fabricate transparent (>85%), electrical conductivity, highly stretchable (strain up to 1100%), and rehealable (mechanical healing efficiency of 86%, electrical healing efficiency of 96%) ionic conductor by solvent-free one-step polymerization. Furthermore, the ionic conductors with appealing sensitivity can be served as strain sensors to detect and distinguish various human activities. Notably, this ionic conductor can be fully recycled and reprocessed into new ionic conductors or adhesives by a direct heating process, which offers a promising prospect in great reduction of electronic wastes that have brought acute environmental pollution. In consideration of the extremely facile preparation process, biological available materials, satisfactory functionalities, and full recyclability, the emergence of LA-based ionic conductors is believed to open up a new avenue for developing sustainable and wearable electronic devices in the future.features. [1][2][3][4] These conductors provide huge opportunities for promising applications of artificial muscles, skin sensors, biological actuators, stretchable displays, electronic eye cameras, intelligent robot arms, and others. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] It was well known that the conventional electronic conductors are normally prepared from waferbased materials, which possess several drawbacks including fragility, rigidity, and low conductivity under large-scale deformations. [12] They cannot satisfy the demands of high stretchability, flexibility, durability, and stability. To achieve these criteria, strain engineering and nanocomposites are the two most adoptable strategies to fabricate stretchable conductors. In the first strategy, nonstretchable inorganic materials, such as silicon and metals, are geometrically patterned into buckled, serpentine structures on elastomeric substrates that renders the conductors excellent sensitivity and larger workable range of strain. [10,13,14] Nonetheless, most resultant conductors still show narrow range of strain from 20% to 70%, [15] and presents out-of-plane patterns that is difficult to encapsulate. Meanwhile, this strategy usually involves expensive and very complicated techniques, which greatly limits the further development of these conductors. Integrating conductive fillers into polymer matrix to produce nanocomposites used as stretchable conductors is the second strategy. [16] So far, various nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, [17][18][19][20] carbon black, [21] graphene-based materials, [22,23] metal nanowires, and nanoparticles, [24,25] have been used as conductive fillers because of their unique mechanical and electrical properties. Although the robu...

Conductive hydrogels have shown great promise in the field of sustainable power sources due to their unique features of sufficient flexibility, durability, and functional diversification. However, time-and energy-consuming polymerization process and poor adaptability in extreme environments severely impede their practical application in such an emerging field. Herein, a facile and universal self-catalytic system (AL-Cu 2+ ) based on alkali lignin (AL) macromolecule has been designed to rapidly fabricate conductive and transparent organohydrogels in alkaline water-ethylene glycol (EG) binary solvent, which displays extreme environment applicability (-40 to 60 °C), eligible stretchability (≈800% elongation), and robust self-adhesion (≈31.4 kPa). Interestingly, the introduced EG accelerates the polymerization, endows extreme freezing/ drying resistance, and improves self-adhesion for the organohydrogels. The organohydrogel (water/EG = 2/3) that combines the above merits inspires the construction of triboelectric nanogenerator (O-TENG) for mechanical energy harvesting and converting regardless of low-or high-temperature environments. The generated electricity by the O-TENG can be used directly or stored to drive commercial electronics and installed on human joints for movement monitoring. This work sheds light on designing environmentresistant flexible TENGs based on multifunctional soft materials with fast gelation strategy, provoking more attention to sustainable high-value utilization of lignin for advanced applications.

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Ionic conductors are normally prepared from water-based materials in the solid form and feature a combination of intrinsic transparency and stretchability. The sensitivity toward humidity inevitably leads to dehydration or deliquescence issues, which will limit the long-term use of ionic conductors. Here, a novel ionic conductor based on natural bacterial cellulose (BC) and polymerizable deep eutectic solvents (PDESs) is developed for addressing the abovementioned drawbacks. The superstrong three-dimensional nanofiber network and strong interfacial interaction endow the BC−PDES ionic conductor with significantly enhanced mechanical properties (tensile strength of 8 × 10 5 Pa and compressive strength of 6.68 × 10 6 Pa). Furthermore, compared to deliquescent PDESs, BC−PDES composites showed obvious mechanical stability, which maintain good mechanical properties even when exposed to high humidity for 120 days. These materials were demonstrated to possess multiple sensitivity to external stimulus, such as strain, pressure, bend, and temperature. Thus, they can easily serve as supersensitive sensors to recognize physical activity of humans such as limb movements, throat vibrations, and handwriting. Moreover, the BC−PDES ionic conductors can be used in flexible, patterned electroluminescent devices. This work provides an efficient strategy for making cellulose-based sustainable and functional ionic conductors which have broad application in artificial flexible electronics and other products.

The emergence of ionic conductive elastomers (ICE) is significant for various electric applications. However, existing ICEs mainly originate from tedious preparations, nonrenewable starting materials, suffer from limited functions, and especially...

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Lipoic acid (LA), which originates from animals and plants, is a small biomass molecule and has recently shown great application value in soft conductors. However, the severe depolymerization of LA places a significant limitation on its utilization. A strategy of using Li‐bonds as both depolymerization quenchers and dynamic mediators to melt transform LA into high‐performance ionoelastomers (IEs) is proposed. They feature dry networks while simultaneously combining transparency, stretchability, conductivity, self‐healing ability, non‐corrosive property, re‐mouldability, strain‐sensitivity, recyclability, and degradability. Most of the existing soft conductors’ drawbacks, such as the tedious synthesis, non‐renewable polymer networks, limited functions, and single‐use only, are successfully solved. In addition, the multi‐functions allow IEs to be used as soft sensors in human–computer interactive games and wireless remote sports assistants. Notably, the recycled IE also provides an efficient conductive filler for transparent ionic papers, which can be used to design soft transparent triboelectric nanogenerators for energy harvesting and multidirectional motion sensing. This work creates a new direction for future research involving intelligent soft electronics.

Ionic conductive hydrogels have attracted much attention in artificial electronic skin and wearable strain sensors. However, most of hydrogel-based sensors exhibit poor mechanical properties and limited sensitivity. Herein, a highly...