journal article·2026-03

Transparent Conductive Hydrogels with Water‐Responsive Contractility, Repairability, and Biocompatibility for Visible Conformal Shape‐Adaptive Tissue‐Adherent Monitoring

Guifen Sun, Zhendong Sun, Lulu Liu, Peng Wang, Zhengyan Zhang, Zhuo Li, Chuizhou Meng, Shijie Guo

Advanced Functional Materials· Volume 36· Issue 22
Publisher page

Abstract

Abstract The conformal integration of flexible electronic devices on curved surfaces of target objects remains challenging, particularly for soft tissues with arbitrary and changeable shapes. Herein, transparent conductive hydrogels are developed for visible conformal shape‐adaptive tissue‐adherent monitoring, in which the water‐responsive contractility, repairability, and biocompatibility are simultaneously achieved. The hydrogel is designed with poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG)‐α‐cyclodextrin (α‐CD)/polyethylene oxide (PEO) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) double‐crosslinking network, in which water as a mild stimulus can disrupt the directional arrangement of crystalline and molecular chains in PEO to trigger efficient contraction, whereas the bonding between α‐CD and PVA ensures sufficient in‐water mechanical repeatability. Besides, a binary solvent of glycerol and water is developed to effectively repair the dehydrated hydrogel after long‐term use with full recovery. Moreover, excellent biocompatibility is verified by in vitro cytotoxicity test and in vivo subcutaneous implantation experiment. The conductive hydrogel could be adhesively wrapped on soft epidermis skins and internal organs of the heart and tendons in a conformal shape‐adaptive way for physiological and motion signal monitoring with visual observation of the covered tissue health status. This multifunctional hydrogel provides an innovative paradigm for developing next‐generation intelligent bioelectronic devices towards broad applications in health management, clinical diagnosis and tissue engineering.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Advanced Materials and Mechanics · Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials · Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

State Key Laboratory for Reliability and Intelligence of Electrical Equipment Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education for Intelligent Rehabilitation Device and Detection Technology Hebei Key Laboratory of Smart Sensing and Human‐Robot Interaction School of Mechanical Engineering Hebei University of Technology Tianjin 300401 China

Key Laboratory of Systems Health Science of Zhejiang Province Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Hangzhou 310024 China

Department of Big Data in Health Science Zhejiang University School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine Hangzhou 310000 China

Department of Materials Science State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers Fudan University Shanghai 200125 China

School of Mechanical Engineering University of Jinan Jinan 250022 China

School of Materials Science & Engineering Zhejiang Sci‐Tech University Hangzhou 310018 China

Funding

Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province · National Natural Science Foundation of China

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