Bioinspired Structural Composite Hydrogels with a Combination of High Strength,Stiffness, and Toughness |
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Authors: | Donghwan Ji Thanh Loc Nguyen Jaeyun Kim |
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Affiliation: | School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon, 16419 Republic of Korea |
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Abstract: | In the development of artificial hydrogels, emulating the mechanical properties of biological tissues with a desirable combination of stiffness and toughness is crucial. To achieve such properties, a design principle inspired by a natural structural composite to wet hydrogels is applied. The bioinspired structural composite hydrogel consisting of layered microplatelets and polymer matrix with strong polymer–platelet interactions is fabricated by a facile method, that is, drying-induced unidirectional shrinkage and rehydration process coupled with secondary ionic crosslinking. The resulting hydrogels exhibit a combination of high tensile strength and elastic modulus (on the order of several MPa) and high fracture energy (up to ≈ 2 kJ·m−2). The results suggest the potential of the bioinspired approach that is limitedly applied in dry composites for developing mechanically robust composite hydrogels. |
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Keywords: | bio-inspiration double-network hydrogels layer-by-layer structures mechanical properties structural composite hydrogels |
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