Robust Superhydrophobic rGO/PPy/PDMS Coatings on a Polyurethane Sponge for Underwater Pressure and Temperature Sensing

Flexible wearable pressure sensors have attracted great interest from researchers in recent years because of their important applications in human–machine interaction, human behavior detection, medical diagnosis, and other fields. At present, integrating multiple functions such as pressure and temperature sensing and self-cleaning into a single material remains a challenging task. Here, by in situ reduction of graphene oxide (GO) grown on a sponge surface and deposition of polypyrrole (PPy) nanoparticles, we have built a highly sensitive, stable, and multifunctional rGO/PPy/poly­(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) polyurethane (PU) sponge (GPPS) sensor for the detection of pressure, water level, and temperature. This multifunctional sensor shows excellent pressure-sensing performance, ultrasensitive loading sensing of a leaf (98 mg), and outstanding reproducibility over 5000 cycles. Due to the stability of the superhydrophobic surface water contact angle (WCA) = 153.3°, our sensor can work in an underwater environment, which can sense water levels from 1 cm (∼98 Pa) to 40 cm and also a variety of underwater behaviors (knock, ultrasonication, blow, etc.) with high stability. In addition, the sensor can be integrated into a circuit for the water level and pressure detection. The sensor can also be used as a smart underwater-temperature sensor; it shows a linear temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of 0.48% °C–1 in a temperature range of 35–80 °C. This multifunctional sensor shows potential application prospects in wearable electronic devices for sensing.