Adhesive aero-hydrogel hybrid conductor assembled from silver nanowire architectures

Conductive and adhesive hydrogels are promising materials for designing bioelectronics. To satisfy the high conductivity of bioelectronic devices, metal nanomaterials have been used to fabricate composite hydrogels. However, the fabrication of a conductive-nanomaterial-incorporated hydrogel with high performance is a great challenge because of the easy aggregation nature of conductive nanomaterials making processing difficult. Here, we report a kind of adhesive aero-hydrogel hybrid conductor (AAHC) with stretchable, adhesive and anti-bacteria properties by in situ formation of a hydrogel network in the aerogel-silver nanowires (AgNWs) assembly. The AgNWs with good conductivity are well-integrated on the inner-surface of shape-memory chitosan aerogel, which created a conductive framework to allow hydrogel back-filling. Reinforcement by the aerogel-silver makes the hybrid hydrogel tough and stretchable. Functional groups from the hydrogel allow strong adhesion to wet tissues through molecular stitches. The inherent bacteria-killing ability of silver ions endows the conductive hydrogel with excellent anti-bacteria performance. The proposed facile strategy of aerogel-assisted assembly of metal nanomaterials with hydrogel opens a new route to incorporate functional nanoscale building blocks into hydrogels.