Functional Liquid Metal Polymeric Composites: Fundamentals and Applications in Soft Wearable Electronics

Wearable and self-healing soft electronics have led to a significant emphasis on their potential in creating versatile, conformable, and sustainable electronic modules. Among conductive additives, Liquid metals (LMs), combining both solid and liquid characteristics, have gained widespread attention due to their versatile physical, chemical, and electrical properties as well as self-healing capability, biocompatibility, and recyclability. The fluidity of LMs facilitates adaptability to various experimental conditions and components for specific applications. Moreover, the oxide shell on LMs exhibits strong compatibility with surface functionalization and polymerization processes, enhancing the development of reliable composite materials. Herein, an in-depth analysis of the fundamental properties and characteristics of LMs while addressing their current drawbacks, such as unpredictable reactivity and poor surface stability, is presented. To harness the advantages of LMs, their integration is extensively discussed with polymeric materials through various grafting strategies, leading to the development of macromolecular composites with exceptional softness, solubility, surface functionalization, and versatility. Furthermore, the applications of LMs within LM-elastomer composites, particularly focusing on their relevance in specific fields such as flexible electronics, are investigated. Finally, LMs' future prospects are emphasized by highlighting their compatibility with self-healing polymers, thereby providing pathways for major breakthroughs of LMs based devices. This review provides valuable insights into liquid metal-polymer composites and outlines crucial avenues for their continued advancement. The focus is on creating sustainable, self-healable liquid metal-polymer composites to achieve enhanced functionality and practical applicability. image