Issue 38, 2014

Design of stiff, tough and stretchy hydrogel composites via nanoscale hybrid crosslinking and macroscale fiber reinforcement

Abstract

Hydrogels' applications are usually limited by their weak mechanical properties. Despite recent great progress in developing tough hydrogels, it is still challenging to achieve high values of stretchability, toughness and modulus all together in synthetic hydrogels. In this paper, we designed highly stretchable, tough, yet stiff hydrogel composites via a combination of nanoscale hybrid crosslinking and macroscale fiber reinforcement. The hydrogel composites were constructed by impregnating a 3D-printed thermoplastic-fiber mesh with a tough hydrogel crosslinked both covalently and ionically. The hydrogel composites can achieve a fracture energy of over 30 000 J m−2, a modulus of over 6 MPa, and can be stretched over 2.8 times even in the presence of large structural defects. The enhancement of toughness in the new hydrogel composites relies on multiple pairs of toughening mechanisms which span over multiple length scales. A theoretical model is further developed to predict the toughness and modulus of the hydrogel composites and guide the design of future materials.

Graphical abstract: Design of stiff, tough and stretchy hydrogel composites via nanoscale hybrid crosslinking and macroscale fiber reinforcement

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 mai 2014
Accepted
27 jun 2014
First published
30 jun 2014

Soft Matter, 2014,10, 7519-7527

Design of stiff, tough and stretchy hydrogel composites via nanoscale hybrid crosslinking and macroscale fiber reinforcement

S. Lin, C. Cao, Q. Wang, M. Gonzalez, J. E. Dolbow and X. Zhao, Soft Matter, 2014, 10, 7519 DOI: 10.1039/C4SM01039F

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