Performance-Recoverable Taro Starch-Based Organohydrogel Sensors: Enabling Performance Restoration and Long-Term Reliability

Abstract

Hydrogel-based sensors are promising for wearable electronics; however, their long-term functional reliability is often compromised by performance degradation under prolonged environmental exposure, including dehydration-induced stiffness and signal instability. Herein, a performance-recoverable taro starch-based hydrogel is developed to address this critical challenge. This hydrogel can recover its key properties (e.g., mechanical, flexible, electrical, and sensing performances) via a facile immersion proposed here, effectively overcoming performance degradation because of prolonged environmental exposure. Meanwhile, it also exhibits satisfactory features: strong mechanical performances (e.g., ability to sustain a 90 kg load); environmental durability with a glass-transition temperature of −91.4 °C and minimal mass loss under ambient conditions; and high biocompatibility with cell viability above 90% and hemolysis below 0.5%. Importantly, the performance-recoverable capability of this hydrogel ensures reproducible signal responses over 300 loading−unloading cycles at 50% strain, demonstrating long-term stability. Furthermore, this hydrogel-based sensor can execute real-time physiological motion monitoring and user-to-user rapid emergency signaling.