Abstract
Gels with excellent performance, especially self-healing ability have attracted much attention on account of their potential use. However, it is necessary to study many issues, such as the preparation of gels, self-healing mechanism and their application. In this paper, we developed a facile and reliable strategy to fabricate poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/phytic acid (PA) gel. Compared with pure PVA gel, PVA/PA gel not only possesses high stretchability (> 1000%), but also combines efficient autonomous self-healing ability. PVA/PA gel could autonomously self-heal swiftly based on hydrogen bonding at room temperature without any external stimuli, even it is left alone for a long time. PVA/PA gel also presents excellent recyclability which can be recycled by hot pressing. Furthermore, it possesses good interfacial adhesion to various materials that can benefit for preparation of electronic device. Meanwhile, because PVA can be used as the electrolyte, self-healing capacitor can be prepared with superior performance based on the PVA/PA gel. In brief, because of the superior performance, PVA/PA gel can be used as a promising candidate in many fields such as electrodes, supercapacitors, batteries, particularly in the fabrication of next-generation wearable and portable electronics.