Biological skin-inspired damage warning and self-healing thermoelectric aerogel fiber via coaxial wet spinning for wearable temperature sensing
Hualing He, Qing Jiang, Yuhang Wan, Md Hasib Mia, Xueru Qu, Mi Zhou, Xingyu He, Xiaoqian Li, Min Hee Hong, Zhicai Yu, Siqi Huo
Abstract
Biopolymer-based temperature-sensing fibers are increasingly employed to realize the eco-friendly concept of wearable electronics. However, keeping their long-term development remains challenging due to limited mechanical robustness and poor environmental tolerance. Herein, a bionic autonomous self-healing thermoelectric (TE) aerogel fiber with visual damage warning function (STDF) inspired by biological skin was prepared via a coaxial wet spinning strategy, which yielded a core-shell heterogeneous structure with a protective sheath with an intrinsic self-healing ability and a temperature-sensing core layer. The core layer of STDF, composed of flexible thermoplastic polyurethane embedded with rigid Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene, effectively minimizes disruptions in continuous conductive pathways during repeated extreme bending. Featuring a synergistic network of reversible hydrogen bonds and dynamic Schiff-base linkages constructed among oxidized alginate, sericin, and tannic acid, the fractured STDF aerogel fiber exhibits exceptional water-responsive self-healing efficiency (97.51% stress recovery). Moreover, the visual damage location in STDF fiber is enabled through a coloration reaction at the damaged interface between the Fe 2+ ions and 1,10-phenanthroline incorporated into the core and sheath layers, respectively. Furthermore, the resultant STDF demonstrates a wide-range temperature-sensing performance at 100–500°C and an ultrasensitive alarm response time (within 2 s) when encountering fires. This work sheds new light on the design of bionic temperature sensing fibers with environment-adaptive self-healing and damage warning abilities for improved reliability and durability in real-world wearable application scenarios.