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Project

SBO project with a primary economic finality: Stretchable & UBiquitous LIquid Metal Electronics - SUBLIME (FWOSBO49)

Highly integrated sensor/electronics systems could significantly benefit
society – potentially for applications in healthcare, wearables and soft
and human augmentation robotics – and can be achieved via the
pathway of liquid metal based stretchable electronics. In this project the
local interaction of the different materials; i.e. liquid metal, metals from
electronic components and stretchable encapsulant, is investigated for
mitigating the degradation of the envisaged soft and stretchable liquid
metal devices for their application in wearables, smart textiles and soft
robotics. The interaction between the liquid metal and the solid metal is
investigated for metal dissolution, metals’ (inter)diffusion, impurity
reactions and alloying, and possible coating solutions to prevent
degradation are researched. Also the degradation of the stretchable
encapsulant is investigated and its influence on the behaviour of the
liquid metal is studied. Several strategies to deposit the different
materials to achieve liquid metal devices, taking into account the
investigated solutions to prevent degradation, are investigated and
based on post-mortem and in-situ reliability studies a procedure for the
reliability testing of Liquid Metal Stretchable Electronics is proposed. All
these findings are tested in three specific application cases; i.e. a
sensorized interface for a wearable device, a light-integrated wire for
smart textile integration and a soft robotic gripper. Only the combined
fundamental scientific knowledge on liquid metal-solid metal
interactions, stretchable encapsulation, processing techniques and
reliability testing will lead to applications with long lifetimes that have
their impact on the companies in the full value chain of this project and
which will lead to a transition from research towards industrial uptake.
Date:1 Oct 2022 →  Today
Keywords:liquid metal, solid metal interaction
Disciplines:Surface and interface chemistry
Project type:Collaboration project