[Macromolecular Materials & Engineering] Highly Flexible, Tough, and Self-Healable Hydrogels Enabled by Dual Cross-Linking of Triblock Copolymer Micelles and Ionic Interactions
writer:H.W.Zhou,* M.Zhang, J.C.Cao, B.Yan, W.Yang, X.L.Jin, A.J.Ma, W.X.Chen, X.B. Ding, G.Zhang,
keywords:Highly Flexible,Self-Healable Hydrogels
source:期刊
specific source:Macromolecular Materials & Engineering, 2017, 302, 1600352.
Issue time:2017年
Development of artifcial soft materials that have good mechanical performances and autonomous healing ability is a longstanding pursuit but remains challenging. This work reports a kind of highly ?exible, tough, and self-healable poly(acrylic acid)/Fe(III) (PAA/Fe(III)) hydrogels. The hydrogels are dually cross-linked by triblock copolymer micelles and ionic interaction between Fe(III) and carboxyl groups. Due to the coexistence of these two crosslinking points, the resulting PAA/Fe(III) hydrogels are tough and can be ?exibly stretched, bent, knotted, and twisted. The hydrogels can withstand a deformation of 600% and an ultimate stress as high as 250 kPa. Moreover, the dynamic ionic interaction also endows the hydrogels self-healing properties. By varying the ratio of Fe(III)/AA, a compromised healing effciency of 73% and an ultimate stress of 200 kPa are obtained.