Self-healing refers to the ability to repair itself spontaneously upon mechanical damages. It is an important survival feature in nature because it increases the lifetime of most living creatures. The self-healing feature is highly desirable for electronics and energy storage devices, which suffer from mechanical damage and short lifetime, including electronic skin, lithium ion batteries, etc. Here inspired by nature, we have successfully introduced the self-healing chemistry to enable high performance electronic skin and lithium ion batteries.By using a supramolecular hydrogen bonding polymer composite, we have demonstrated the first repeatable, room-temperature self-healing electronic sensor skin. A conductivity as high as 40 S/cm was measured for our composite, which is four orders of magnitude higher than previously reported self-healing conductive organometallic polymer films. The composite material is mechanically flexible, and is capable of sensing tactile and flexion forces.The self-healing concept was further introduced into silicon microparticle based high-capacity lithium ion batteries to overcome their short cycling lifetime. We show that anodes made from low-cost SiMPs (~3�8 �m), for which stable deep galvanostatic cycling was previously impossible, can now have an excellent cycle life when coated with a self-healing polymer. We attain a cycle life ten times longer than state-of-art anodes made from SiMPs and still retain a high capacity (up to ~3,000 mAh/g). Cracks and damage in the coating during cycling can be healed spontaneously by the randomly branched hydrogen-bonding polymer used.References:[1] Benjamine C-K. Tee*, Chao Wang*, Ranulfo Allen, Zhenan Bao (* equal contribution)Nat. Nanotechnol. , 2012, 7, 825-832.[2] Chao Wang, Nan Liu, Ranulfo Allen, Jeffrey. B. Tok, Zhenan BaoAdv. Mater.  2013, 25, 5785-5790.[3] Chao Wang*, Hui Wu*, Zheng Chen, Matthew T. McDowell, Yi Cui, Zhenan Bao (* equal contribution) Nat. Chem.   2013, 5, 1042-1048.

Self-healing polymer composites for electronic skin and lithium ion batteries

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.