Tough, conductive hydrogels with double-network based on hydrophilic polymer assistant well-dispersed carbon nanotube for innovative force sensor

In recent years, conductive hydrogels have become a promising candidate for application in fields such as tissue engineering and flexible electronic devices because of their conductivity, soft and wet nature. However, the preparation of tough and uniformly conductive hydrogels remains challenging because conductive nanofillers tend to aggregate during hydrogel formation. Herein, a hydrophilic polymer assistant dispersion strategy is proposed to fabricate a tough, conductive composite hydrogel with double-network based on well-dispersed carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In particular, A@T_2.0/polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels showed a tensile strength of 332.9 kPa, elongation of 584.6%, Young’s modulus of 91.5 kPa, and conductivity of 2.765 S m⁻¹, and a demonstration was performed to show the strain sensing for health monitoring and handwriting. Results showed that the fabricated conductive hydrogels offer promising and broad insights in the field of wearable sensors for health monitoring, innovative electronics, and human machine interactions.