[Macromolecular Materials & Engineering]Mechanically Robust, Tough, and Self-Recoverable Hydrogels with Molecularly Engineered Fully Flexible Crosslinking Structure
writer:H. W. Zhou,* X. L. Jin, B. Yan, X. J. Li, W. Yang, A. J. Ma, X. H. Zhang, P. Li, X. B. Ding, W. X. C
keywords:Hydrogel,Tough, Self-Recoverable
source:期刊
specific source:Macromolecular Materials & Engineering
Issue time:2017年
How to reasonably fabricate polymer network for high performance hydrogels is a critical issue but remains a challenge. This work reports an approach to high performance hydrogels by molecularly engineering fully flexible crosslinking (ffC) network. A model network cross-linked by fully flexible crosslinking points of triblock copolymer micelles and ionic interactions is fabricated. Due to the unique structure, the resulting ffC hydrogels are mechanically robust, tough, and self-recoverable. For as-prepared ffC hydrogels, a tensile stress more than 3.5 MPa can be achieved and the energy dissipation can reach up to 6.61 MJ m<sup>?3</sup> at the tensile strain of 125%. Moreover, ffC hydrogels fabricated under constant strain can achieve an energy dissipation ability up to 11.63 MJ m<sup>?3</sup> at the tensile strain of 100% and a tensile stress of 17.57 MPa. Based on these results, a dynamic molecular mechanism in the ffC hydrogel network under tensile deformation is proposed. The high performances of the ffC hydrogels can be possibly attributed to the sequential breakage and energy