Directional Moisture-Wicking Triboelectric Materials Enabled by Laplace Pressure Differences
Zhiwei Wang, Xuelian Zou, Tao Liu, Yunpeng Zhu, Di Wu, Yayu Bai, Guoli Du, Bin Luo, Song Zhang, Mingchao Chi, Yanhua Liu, Yuzheng Shao, Jinlong Wang, Shuangfei Wang, Shuangxi Nie
Abstract
Wearable sensors are experiencing vibrant growth in the fields of health monitoring systems and human motion detection, with comfort becoming a significant research direction for wearable sensing devices. However, the weak moisture-wicking capability of sensor materials leads to liquid retention, severely restricting the comfort of the wearable sensors. This study employs a pattern-guided alignment strategy to construct microhill arrays, endowing triboelectric materials with directional moisture-wicking capability. Within 2.25 s, triboelectric materials can quickly and directionally remove the droplets, driven by the Laplace pressure differences and the wettability gradient. The directional moisture-wicking triboelectric materials exhibit excellent pressure sensing performance, enabling rapid response/recovery (29.1/37.0 ms), thereby achieving real-time online monitoring of human respiration and movement states. This work addresses the long-standing challenge of insufficient moisture-wicking driving force in flexible electronic sensing materials, holding significant implications for enhancing the comfort and application potential of electronic skin and wearable electronic devices.