High-resilience, anti-freezing, and vacuum-tolerant eutectogel for <?A3B2 pi6?>self-powered pressure sensing in extreme environments

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things and smart sensing technologies, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) offer new efficient energy harvesting solutions for self-powered sensors. However, traditional TENG materials exhibit limited mechanical durability, environmental stability, and sensing performance under extreme conditions. Therefore, this study develops a novel eutectogel based on a deep eutectic solvent (DES) and poly(itaconic acid-co-2-hydroxyethyl acrylate) (P(IA-co-HEA)) polymer network. The careful molecular design and microstructural modification of this system result in a eutectogel with low hysteresis, excellent resilience (97.8%), high conductivity (48.02 mS m−1), and strong adhesive strength. Owing to the low freezing point and low volatility of the DES, the P(IA-co-HEA) eutectogel maintains 75.7% and 69.4% tensile and compressive resilience, respectively, at −40 °C. Moreover, no significant change in resilience is observed after 24 h of storage under a −0.1 MPa vacuum environment. A self-powered TENG pressure sensor containing the developed eutectogel demonstrates a fast response time (16 ms) and stable signal output over 16000 contact-separation cycles. In addition, the sensor operates reliably at −60 °C and vacuum (−0.1 MPa) conditions. The high resilience of the flexible self-powered sensor makes it suitable for use in extreme environments, supporting long-term, reliable pressure monitoring.