Polyaniline/Poly(acrylamide‐co‐sodium acrylate) Porous Conductive Hydrogels with High Stretchability by Freeze‐Thaw‐Shrink Treatment for Flexible Electrodes

Abstract

With the development of alternatives to traditional fossil energy and the rise of wearable technology, flexible energy storage devices have attracted great attention. In this paper, a polyaniline/poly(acrylamide‐sodium acrylate copolymer) hydrogel (PASH) with high flexibility and excellent electrochemical properties for flexible electrodes is fabricated by freeze‐thaw‐shrink treatment of a highly water‐absorptive hydrogel, together with in‐situ polymerization of aniline at a low aniline concentration (0.1 mol L−1). The PASH exhibits a conductivity of 4.05 S m−1 and an elongation at break of 1245%. The freeze‐thaw‐shrink treatment greatly improves the electrochemical performance and stability of the conductive PASH. The area specific capacitance of PASH reaches 849 mF cm−2 and the capacitance maintains 89% after 1000 galvanostatic charge–discharge cycles. All the raw materials are conventional industrialized materials and no additional templating agent is needed during the entire synthesis process. This study provides a cost‐efficient approach for the fabrication of conductive polymer hydrogels, which has a broad application prospect in flexible energy storage electronic devices.

Tough, Antifreezing, and Conductive Hydrogel Based on Gelatin and Oxidized Dextran

“…Huang et al designed a polyaniline/poly(acrylamidesodium acrylate copolymer) hydrogel (PASH) with high flexibility and excellent electrochemical properties for flexible electrodes and PANI was introduced by in situ polymerization. [18] The PASH hydrogel displayed a good conductivity of 4.05 S m −1 . Meanwhile, Ni et al constructed a conductive hydrogel by incorporating tannic acid-carbon nanotubes (TA-CNTs) into a PVA matrix containing a water-glycerol dispersion medium, which exhibited outstanding sensitivity (gauge factor (GF) of 3.18) and high conductivity (5.13 S m −1 ).…”

“…designed a polyaniline/poly(acrylamide‐sodium acrylate copolymer) hydrogel (PASH) with high flexibility and excellent electrochemical properties for flexible electrodes and PANI was introduced by in situ polymerization. [ 18 ] The PASH hydrogel displayed a good conductivity of 4.05 S m −1 . Meanwhile, Ni et al.…”

Polyacrylamide‐Graphene Oxide‐Polyaniline Based Flexible Electrode for Portable Supercapacitor

“…Conductive hydrogels combine the conductivity of conductive materials with the flexibility of hydrogels and can be used for flexible electrodes. [ 37–39 ] The double network structure of sodium alginate and acrylamide can improve the mechanical properties of the hydrogel, and sodium alginic can better disperse graphene oxide. [ 40 ]…”

Stretchable Zwitterionic Conductive Hydrogels with Semi‐Interpenetrating Network Based on Polyaniline for Flexible Strain Sensors

“…[9][10][11][12][13][14] DOI: 10.1002/macp.202100165 However, in practical applications, conductive hydrogels are limited by mechanical properties, especially for conductive hydrogels with intrinsic conductive polymers as key components. [15] Recently, conductive polymers, such as polyaniline (PANI), [16,17] polypyrrole (PPY), [18,19] and polythiophene (PTH) [20,21] have been successfully utilized to construct various CHs with stable networks. However, the flexibility of conductive hydrogels is severely limited.…”