Designing Ionic Conductive Elastomers Using Hydrophobic Networks and Hydrophilic Salt Hydrates with Improved Stability in Air

Existing soft ionic conductors fall into two distinct categories: liquid-rich containing large amounts of liquid electrolytes (≈70–90 wt.% water for hydrogels and ≈20–80 liquids ionogels), liquid-free that do not contain components (e.g., conductive elastomers). However, they are often plagued by dehydration, leakage toxic liquids, air aging. Here, using hydrophobic polymer networks hydrophilic salt hydrates, elastomers (s-ICEs short) only a tiny amount bound (≈1–5 synthesized). Thanks to the small embedded content, s-ICEs advantageous over in terms enhanced mechanical/electrical stabilities safety; also outperform previously reported avoiding air-aging issues. The introduced here show excellent stretchability, good elasticity, high fracture resistance, desirable optical transparency conductivity, which comparable those state-of-the-art conductors. With all above advantages, s-ICE represents an ideal material practical applications ionotronics ambient conditions.