Self-powered, durable and high fire-safety ionogel towards Internet of Things

It is of great importance but full of challenge to construct intelligent materials with self-powered, durable and high fire-safety to meet the requirements of the intelligent fire protection towards Internet of Things (IoT). In this work, phosphorous-containing ionic liquid (PIL)-based ionogels (PILGs) were fabricated with acrylamide, low melting point polyanionic polystyrene sulfonate sodium and polycationic polydiallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride via ultraviolet initiated polymerization. PILGs showed good ionic conductivity (1.33 S·m−1) and high ionic thermoelectric effect (1.31 mV·K−1), which endowed flammable materials with accurate temperature-sensing, sensitive fire-warning performance and outstanding flame retardancy. When being burned, PILGs triggered the fire-warning system at about 1 s and rapidly self-extinguished. Besides, due to the good thermostability and low volatility of PIL, PILGs displayed high durability in extreme environments. More importantly, PILGs were designed as thermoelectric capacitors and high output power galvanic cells, which could power fire-warning circuits and electronics. Our work provides new insights for the development and application of self-powered intelligent fire protection materials.