Conductive hydrogels with high ionic conductivity, excellent mechanical properties and excellent water retention are still widely concerned in the field of flexible electronics. In this study, a low-cost, green and simple modification strategy was used to prepare a double-crosslinked alkaline hydrogel electrolyte composed of lignin-containing cellulose nanofibrils ( L -CNF), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyacrylamide (PAM) to improve the performance of flexible zinc-air batteries (FZABs). The mechanical properties of the hydrogel, ionic conductivity, and water retention capacity were optimized through varying the additive amounts of L -CNF. The findings indicate that the composite hydrogel electrolyte exhibits optimal performance at an L -CNF content of 0.15 g，exhibiting an ionic conductivity as high as 336.42 mS cm −1 , water retention of 52% after 10 days, and tensile strain of 320% under 70 kPa stress. The FZABs based on this hydrogel electrolyte achieved a peak power density of 50.5 mW cm −2 , demonstrated stable discharge for 689 min at 2.0 mA cm −2 , and displayed cycling stability over 33 h. The hydrogel electrolyte has excellent flexible sensing performance with a gauge factor of 3.10. In this work, green and low-cost biomass L -CNF is used as a functional modification filler, which provides a new design idea for the multifunctional integration of biomass resources in flexible energy devices.
Liu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.