A Chewing Gum Residue‐Based Gel with Superior Mechanical Properties and Self‐Healability for Flexible Wearable Sensor

Abstract

Chewing gum residue is hard to decompose and easy to cause pollution, which is highly desirable to realize recycling. In this paper, a chewing gum gel with enhanced mechanical properties and self‐healing properties is prepared by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the backbone in chewing gum residue. The hydrogen bond and the borax ester bond are employed to construct reversible interaction to enhance the self‐healing ability. The physical crosslinking is realized by further freeze‐thaw treatment to improve its mechanical properties. The gel demonstrates high elongation at break of 610% and strength of 0.11 MPa, as well as excellent self‐healing performance and recyclable properties. In particular, the gel with a fast signal response is successfully applied as a wearable strain sensor to monitor different types of human motion. The gel as a sensor exhibits self‐healing properties suggesting superior safety and stability, and displays wide linear sensitivity (the gauge factor is 0.417 and 0.170). The gel can be further served to explore temperature changes, implying the application in temperature monitoring. This study develops a novel approach for the recycle and reuse of chewing gum residue. The obtained gel may be a promising candidate for the fabrication of flexible wearable sensor.

Versatile chewed gum composites with liquid metal for strain sensing, electromagnetic interference shielding and flexible electronics

“…In addition, a chewing gum gel with enhanced mechanical properties and self-healing performance was realized via hydrogen bonding and the borax ester bond formed by the introduction of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the backbone, and it demonstrated a high elongation at break of 610% and strength of 0.11 MPa and could be used as a wearable strain sensor to monitor human motion. 14 Although gum-based flexible electronics show great potential for wearable sensor applications, these materials suffer from poor conductivity ( e.g. , 10 S m −1 for a CNT-based sensor 12 ), long-term stability and multiple integrated applications.…”

Controlling Dendrite Growth with Xylan-Enhanced Hydroxyl-Rich Hydrogel Electrolyte for Efficient Zn-Ion Energy Storage

“…The deconvolution peaks of C 1s are observed at 284.8, 286.3, and 287.8 eV and ascribed to C–C/C–H, C–O, and O–CO/C–O–B (Figure f). The binding energy peaks from B 1s appear at 191.6 eV (B–O–B) and 192.5 eV (B–O–C), indicating the presence of the B–O–B structure between borax molecules and the B–O–C structure between borax and polymer molecular chains. , In conclusion, such multiple interactions may promote the mechanical properties of the PBX hydrogel, potentially contributing to sustainable and effective quasi-solid-state energy storage devices.…”

Influence of chemical nature of citric and malic acids on reaction time of the crosslinking of polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels

“…Its final physical properties are defined by its degree of hydrolysis, which changes its molecular mass and differentiates commercial grades. PVOH exhibits many important characteristics, as it is biodegradable, biocompatible, non-toxic, soluble in water, thermostable and has good chemical and adhesive resistance [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. However, the presence of hydroxyls in PVOH makes PVOH soluble, limiting its applicability [2,3,8].…”

“…Physicochemical control of PVOH is possibly by crosslinking using various conventional crosslinking agents such as glutaraldehyde, boric acid, glycidyl methacrylate, genipin, microcrystalline cellulose, thermal crosslinking and photo-induced. In many of these cases, toxic solvents are commonly used, which are of concern for specific hydrogel applications [2,5,[7][8][9][10]. In this context, carboxylic acids are crosslinking agents for PVOH, and these acids are easily available, odourless, non-toxic, biodegradable, and also good chemical crosslinking agents [2,5,9,11,12].…”