Anti-Swelling, Underwater Adhesion, and Luminescent Polymeric Ionogels for Multifunctional Marine Wearable Skin

Marine wearable technology is of critical importance for ocean exploration and development. However, antiswelling, underwater adhesion, luminescence, and stable marine environmental sensing capabilities within a single system remain a core challenge in this field. Herein, a multifunctional marine wearable smart skin is designed based on an ionogel with the synergistic effects of hydrophilic-hydrophobic, cation-π, and π-π interactions, as well as lanthanide metal-ligand coordination. Benefiting from its dense polymeric network and hydrophobic nature, the ionogel shows excellent antiswelling performance and can effectively displace the water layer at the bonding interface. The synergistic effects of multiple noncovalent interactions with various materials further endow the ionogel with superior, reversible, and stable underwater adhesion toward distinct substrates. These two properties guarantee long-term stable sensing. Additionally, the introduction of lanthanide complexes enables the ionogel to emit multicolor fluorescence in an aquatic environment. Notably, the salt-adaptive conductivity of the ionogel shields the signal-to-noise ratio from seawater. Eventually, via conformal attaching to the human or robotic body, this marine-adaptable ionogel-based wearable skin can provide not only precise digital signals corresponding to human movements and robotic grasping behaviors, which is further extended to underwater communication, but also bright visual information in dark marine conditions, which is expected to achieve potential functions such as display and warning. These findings provide a promising route for the development of advanced marine wearable platforms with outstanding integrated performance.