All-Solid-State Ionic Conductive Elastomers from Poly(ionic liquid) Networks and Metal–Oxygen Interactions for Flexible Sensing Applications and Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Flexible conductive materials have emerged as ideal candidates for soft robots, wearable devices, and micro-nanogenerators. However, developing high-performance conductive materials that combine good stability, exceptional mechanical properties, self-healing capabilities, and high ionic conductivity remains a challenge. Here, an ionic conductive elastomer (ICE), composed of a poly(ionic liquid) network and lithium salts, is synthesized through a photopolymerization strategy. The decomposition temperatures of the ICEs are close to 308 °C, and the ICEs still exhibit good humidity stability at a relative humidity of 60%. The elastomer hosts lithium (Li+) cations and associated anions via lithium and hydrogen bonds, respectively. This design achieves an optimal balance between a tensile strength of 0.83 MPa and an elongation at break of 1960% while enabling efficient room-temperature self-healing ability. The combination of conductive poly(ionic liquid) and lithium salts enables the ICEs to exhibit a high ionic conductivity of 5.73 × 10-4 S m-1. The prepared ICEs also display sensitive and stable responses to strain and temperature, and they could serve as a triboelectric nanogenerator. This work provides a new design strategy for high-performance ICEs, showing great potential in flexible electronics and micro-nanogenerators.