Superelastic Triboelectric Aerogel Enabled by Cross-Scale Fibers and Heterojunction Particles for Wearable Intelligent Neck Guard

Aerogel offers an ideal engineering carrier for self-powered wearable devices. However, the high-strength design pursued by aerogels currently affects the wearing comfort and biosignal-acquisition capability in wearable devices. Herein, an ice-template-driven cross-scale fibers self-assembly strategy is reported for the fabrication of soft, superelastic triboelectric aerogel, which can build a stable layer-pillar structure through ice crystal-induced phase separation and inter-fiber interface reinforcement. The unique energy dissipation mechanism enables the aerogel to completely recover after 80% strain and show slight plastic deformation after 1000 compression cycles. Meanwhile, the heterojunction-structured ZnO@ZIF-8 nanoparticles further augment the triboelectric characteristic of the aerogel, including a surface potential of 1.2 V and a relative permittivity of 10.2. The triboelectric device assembled by aerogel exhibits ultrahigh pressure sensitivity (12.1 V kPa⁻¹), and achieves precise monitoring of the joints and motion status of people undergoing rehabilitation training. Moreover, an intelligent neck guard for monitoring neck motion is developed based on superelastic triboelectric aerogel. Combined with machine learning, it can recognize neck motion with high precision (97% accuracy), and adapt to accessible human–machine interaction. This study furnishes a more comfortable design strategy for wearable electronics and an innovative solution for the next generation of self-powered sensing systems towards smart healthcare.