Lightweight, Highly Extensible, and Anti-Leak Liquid Metal Elastomer Composites with an Interpenetrating Architecture

In this study, a reformed sugar template-based method is employed to prepare gallium-based liquid-metal-filled elastomer composites (LMECs), which allows the uniform dispersion of LM droplets within the elastomer matrix in the form of an interpenetrating morphology. In the current preparation, a portion of the liquid metal (LM) is extracted from the elastomer foam following a complete vacuum infusion, resulting in a 10% volume fraction of LM droplets remaining. These droplets exhibit strong adhesion to the inner surfaces of the elastomer foams through the Ga2O3 layer. Nevertheless, the electrical and thermal conductivities are found to be 0.72 x 103 S m-1 and 0.48 W m-1 K-1, respectively. The mechanical performance, piezo-resistive effect, and thermal conductivity are measured to establish the structure-property relationships. Furthermore, the intrinsic microphysical mechanisms are identified from their distinctive architectures. The reformation of the conventional sugar template approach results in the low concentration and homogeneous dispersion of LM droplets, endowing the resulting LMECs with lightweight and versatile properties, and also mitigating LM leakage to some extent. Herein, this work may prove instrumental in the development of stretchable electronics, soft robots, and multifunctional materials with interpenetrating networks. A reformed sugar template-based method is employed to prepare gallium-based liquid metal-filled elastomers (LMECs), which allows the uniform dispersion of liquid-metal (LM) droplets within the elastomer matrix in the form of an interpenetrating morphology, which endows the resulting LMECs with lightweight and versatile properties, and also mitigating LM leakage to some extent.image (c) 2024 WILEY-VCH GmbH