Flexible electronics has attracted tremendous attention due to the combination of superior mechanical attributes and electrical performance. It can be applied in places that are not accessible by traditional rigid printed circuit boards, such as seamless integration with soft tissues and organs of human body for healthcare, bio-inspired curvilinear imagers and artificial skins that mimic the mechanical and electrical properties of natural skin. More recently, various chemistry and mechanisms have been explored to enable self-healability and degradability in wearable electronics. All these developments could lead to an exciting bright future of applying technological advancements to improve the wellbeing of people and the society. However, on the other hand, mass production and application of electronics generate a large amount of electronic waste. By 2021, the total electric waste is estimated to reach 52.2 million tons, and the majority of the waste cannot be appropriately recycled. The consequence is that a large amount of heavy metals and other hazardous substances have been entering the eco-system, causing serious environmental problems and human health issue<i>s</i>. To resolve this issue, we here report a fully recyclable multifunctional wearable electronic system, which can simultaneously provide excellent mechanical stretchability, self-healability and reconfigurability. Such wearable electronics is achieved by heterogeneous integration of rigid (chip components), soft (dynamic covalent thermoset polyimine) and liquid (eutectic liquid metal) materials through advanced mechanical design and low-cost fabrication method. High-performance sensing and monitoring of the human body, including physical motion tracking, temperature monitoring, and sensing of acoustic and electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, are demonstrated.

Stretchable, self-healable, recyclable, and reconfigurable wearable electronics

ACS Spring 2022

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