Highly Elastic Slide-Ring Hydrogel with Good Recovery as Stretchable Supercapacitor.

As a new material with excellent mechanical properties and good stability, slide-ring gels have attracted more and more attention and research. However, it cannot be widely used due to its relatively complicated synthesis. Herein, we use 6-acrylamidomethylether-modified α-cyclodextrin (αCDAAmMe) and PEG 20000 diacrylate (PEG 20000 DA) to construct a polypseudorotaxane. Then, the polypseudorotaxane reacts with acrylamide via a photo-initiated polymerization in-situ to conveniently obtain a slide-ring hydrogel with good elastic property and high recovery property. That is, the hydrogel can be easily stretched to 22.5 times of its original length but recovered rapidly and almost reversibly. These results enable the application of hydrogel to make an intrinsically stretchable and compressible supercapacitor after doping ions and the adhesion of commercially available carbon nanotube (CNT) paper as electrodes, giving the ionic conductivity as 17.0 mS/cm (comparable to that of the commercial PVA/H3PO4 electrolyte) and the capacitance as 0.87 uF/cm2 (at the scan speed of 100 mV/s), and its capacitance can be further enhanced under the stretching.