Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content

Huang，Limei1; Li，Hao2; Wen，Shunxi1; Xia，Penghui1; Zeng，Fanzhan1; Peng，Chaoyi3; Yang，Jun3; Tan，Yun4; Liu，Ji4; Jiang，Lei5; Wang，Jianfeng1

2024-12-01

10.1038/s41467-024-52264-y

Nature Communications   影响因子和分区

2041-1723

Hydrogels, provided that they integrate strength and toughness at desired high content of water, promise in load-bearing tissues such as articular cartilage, ligaments, tendons. Many developed strategies impart hydrogels with some mechanical properties akin to natural tissues, but compromise water content. Herein, a strategy deprotonation-complexation-reprotonation is proposed to prepare polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels with water content as high as ~80% and favorable mechanical properties, including tensile strength of 7.4 MPa, elongation of around 1350%, and fracture toughness of 12.4 kJ m. The key to water holding yet improved mechanical properties lies in controllable nucleation for refinement of crystalline morphology. With nearly constant water content, mechanical properties of as-prepared hydrogels are successfully tailored by tuning crystal nuclei density via deprotonation degree and their distribution uniformity via complexation temperature. This work provides a nucleation concept to design robust hydrogels with desired water content, holding implications for practical application in tissue engineering.

英语

其他

2-s2.0-85203276384

Scopus

1.College of Materials Science and Engineering,Hunan University,Changsha,China
2.Institute of Laser Manufacturing,Henan Academy of Sciences,Zhengzhou,China
3.Zhuzhou Times New Material Technology CO.,LTD.,Zhuzhou,China
4.Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering,Southern University of Science and Technology,Shenzhen,China
5.CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Materials and Interface Sciences,Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry Chinese,Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China

Huang，Limei,Li，Hao,Wen，Shunxi,et al. Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content[J]. Nature Communications,2024,15(1).

Huang，Limei.,Li，Hao.,Wen，Shunxi.,Xia，Penghui.,Zeng，Fanzhan.,...&Wang，Jianfeng.(2024).Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content.Nature Communications,15(1).

Huang，Limei,et al."Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content".Nature Communications 15.1(2024).