ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
·
2024
·
IF 8.3
Ruidong Cheng,Xuehui Zhang,Jie Li,Hua Zheng,Qiuyu Zhang
Most natural supporting tissues possess both exceptional mechanical strength, a significant amount of water, and the anisotropic structure, as well as nanoscale assembly. These properties are essential for biological processes, but have been challenging to emulate in synthetic materials. In an effort to achieve simultaneous improvement of these trade-off features, a hydrogen bonding-induced self-assembly strategy was introduced to create nanoporous plastic-like polymer hydrogels. Multiple hydrogen bonding-mediated networks and nanoporous orientation structures endow transparent hydrogels with remarkable mechanical robustness. They exhibit Young’s modulus of up to 223.7 MPa and a breaking strength of up to 10.3 MPa, which are superior to those of most common polymer hydrogels. The uniform porous nanostructures of hydrogen-bonded hydrogels contribute to a significantly larger specific surface area compared to conventional hydrogels. This allows for the retention of high mechanical properties in environments with a high water content of 70 wt %. A rubbery stage is observed during the heating process, which can reverse and reshape the manufacture of objects with various desired 2D or 3D shapes using techniques such as origami and kirigami. Finally, as a proof-of-concept, the outstanding mechanical properties of poly(MAA-co-AA-co-NVCL) hydrogel, combined with its high water content, make it suitable for applications such as smart temperature monitors, multilevel information anticounterfeiting, and artificial muscles.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
生物材料
·
化学工程
✓ 已验证
DOI
PubMed
高影响因子
Extreme Mechanics Letters
·
2025
·
IF 4.5
Jingping Wu,Zhengjin Wang,Xiao Liu,Yong Zheng,Yang Gao,Jian Hu
Hydrogels with high water content and toughness are essential to various applications in smart materials and biomimetic systems. However, there exists a conflict between water content and toughness. To enhance toughness, high polymer chain density or water-free reinforcements are usually introduced into hydrogel matrices, which inevitably lead to a reduction in water content. In this study, we present a facile method for preparing water-abundant and tough hydrogels through ion transfer printing. By utilizing sodium alginate/polyacrylamide (Alg/PAAm) hydrogels as a flexible matrix and Fe 3+ ions as stiffening agents, we selectively introduce Fe 3+ ions into predefined regions of the hydrogel matrix, resulting in well-structured composite hydrogels comprising soft Alg/PAAm matrix and hard Fe 3+ -crosslinked Alg/PAAm (Fe-Alg/PAAm) fibers. As both the matrix and fibers are stretchable and water-abundant, the composites exhibit impressive stretchability ( ε ∼1000 %) and water content ( p ∼95 %). Notably, the alternating arrangement of the soft and hard fiber/matrix architecture effectively prevents crack propagation during loading by inducing stress deconcentration at the crack tip, thereby leading to exceptional toughness ( Γ ∼22000 J/m 2 ). This simple method introduces a universal design strategy for constructing stretchable, water-abundant, and tough hydrogels, considering that ionic crosslinking with multi-valent cation crosslinkers is widely used in hydrogels. Beyond the Fe 3+ and Alg/PAAm hydrogel system discussed here, this concept can be extended to various combinations of multi-valent ions and hydrogel networks containing opposite charges.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
生物材料
·
智能材料
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
·
2022
·
IF 9.224
Yu-Xiong Ju,Run-Ze Hu,Ping-Yue Wang,Yu-Shi Shen,Fei-Fan Shuang,Jun Wang,Peng Song,Wei-Guo Zhao,Xiao-Hui Yao,Dong-Yang Zhang,Tao Chen
Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is a safe high-molecular polymer with good biocompatibility that can be prepared into hydrogels with high tensile strength by salting out. However, inorganic ions will cause PVA chains to form strong crystals through intramolecular H-bond interactions, resulting in dehydration of PVA chains and greatly reducing the water content of hydrogels. Herein, inspired by the structural model of straw rammed earth bricks, a PVA, silk nanofiber (SNF), and chitosan (CS) composite hydrogel (PSC) were prepared with a high Young’s modulus (8.85 ± 0.24 MPa), acceptable tensile strength (4 ± 0.28 MPa), and high fatigue threshold (8.09 ± 0.5 kJ/m2). Because SNF plays the role of straw-formed hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) with PVA and CS, the formation of H-bonds between PVA chains was inhibited, leading to more free hydrophilic groups (−OH). Therefore, the water content increased significantly to as high as 87%. By fabricating the structure of straw rammed earth bricks in hydrogels, PSC had both a high Young’s modulus and a high water content, even though the crystallinity of PVA decreased. PSC also showed antibacterial properties against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus due to CS and are expected to be further applied in biomedicine and tissue engineering.
研究领域:
生物材料学
·
组织工程学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Soft Matter
·
2023
·Vol. 19
·期 20
·3700-3710
·
IF 3.4
Xiangnan He,Jianxiang Cheng,Zechu Sun,Haitao Ye,Qingjiang Liu,Biao Zhang,Qi Ge
Digital light processing (DLP)-based three-dimensional (3D) printing is an ideal tool to manufacture hydrogel structures in complex 3D forms. Using DLP to print hydrogel structures with high resolution requires the addition of water-soluble photo-absorbers to absorb excess light and confine photopolymerization to the desired area. However, the current photo-absorbers for hydrogel printing are neither efficient to absorb the excess light nor water-soluble. Herein, we report a volatile microemulsion template method that converts a wide range of commercial non-water-soluble photo-absorbers including Sudan orange G, quercetin, and many others to water-soluble nanoparticles with solubility above 1.0 g mL−1. After using these water-soluble photo-absorber nanoparticles, the highest lateral and vertical resolutions of printing high-water-content (70–80 wt%) hydrogels can be improved to 5 μm and 20 μm, respectively. Moreover, the quercetin nanoparticle can be easily washed out so that we achieve colorless and transparent printed hydrogel structures with excellent mechanical deformability and biocompatibility as well as thermally controllable variations on transparency and actuation. The proposed methods pave a new efficient way to develop water-soluble photo-absorbers, which helps to greatly improve the printing resolution of the high-water-content hydrogel structure and would be beneficial to extend the application scope of hydrogels.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
生物医学工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
PubMed
高影响因子
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
·
2023
·
IF 15.1
Chunbao Liu,Hui Xu,Yunhong Liang,Suqian Ma,Zhaohua Lin,Lei Ren,Zhiwu Han,Luquan Ren
Ionic-polymer metal composites (IPMCs) actuators show great potential for soft robots due to their large deformations and fast responses at low voltage. However, realizing large and stable deformation remains a challenge since the existence of back relaxation phenomena. Herein, we report high-performance IPMCs actuators fabricated via solution-casting and isopropanol-assisted electroless plating methods. The actuator exhibits extremely large bending deformation (125°) and ultrafast initial response speed (1.09 % s −1 bending strain rate) within one second of the start time under the DC voltage of 3 V. Furthermore, the actuator exhibits no significant back relaxation, even when it lifts objects 11 times heavier and holds up for more than 695 s. The outstanding properties of the actuator are demonstrated by various soft robots, including a guide-grapple robot and a microarchitecture for robotic metamaterials, and a finite element simulation approach is proposed to model the robotic metamaterials. This study offers a viable means for developing high-performance artificial muscles without back relaxation for promising applications in biomedical devices, robotic metamaterials, and soft robotics.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
机器人学
·
生物医学工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
COLLOIDS AND SURFACES A-PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING ASPECTS
·
2021
·
IF 4.539
Shengzhen Hou,Xiujun Wang,Jian Zhang
In this work, we show how simple mixing of mineral clay materials and a biopolymer chitosan to afford hydrogel composites with significantly enhanced performances in instant mechanical recovery and self-healing, anti-high temperature and anti-high ionic strength activities. Benefited by the electrostatic attraction between anionic clay and cationic chitosan , molecular level coassembly was achieved, which gave rise to a robust and rapidly self-healable hydrogel. Synergistic effect between components enhanced the mechanical strength more than 10 folds and shortened the self-healable time more than 40 folds (from 220 s to less than 5 s). In addition, the binary hydrogel show extremely enhanced anti-temperature and ionic strength properties. This study offers a feasible and dramatically facile protocol to build functional hydrogel materials using commercially available mineral and biopolymer, which have promising applications in special areas such as underground oil and gas engineering.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
生物学
·
化学工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
·
2025
·
IF 9.7
Haidi Wu,Qin Su,Ruigang Zhou,Jun Yan,Yifan Feng,Cheng Guan,Wenwen Su,Dingdong Chen,Longcheng Tang,Xuewu Huang,Jiefeng Gao
Hydrogels that simultaneously achieve high water content and mechanical robustness remain a challenge in biomaterials science, as conventional reinforcement strategies tend to conflict with hydration requirements. Herein, we present a chain entanglement-mediated dynamic crosslinking strategy that transcends this limitation in poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels through molecular-to-macroscopic hierarchical engineering. By pre-constructing an entangled network in a glycerol organogel and inducing the formation of borate ester bonds via solvent exchange, we establish hydrogels with a dual-reinforcement architecture: borate esterification disrupts crystalline domains and expands the polymeric network to enable good hydration (85.5–93.4 % water content) while synergizing dynamic bond reversibility with macromolecular entanglements for multiscale energy dissipation. The resultant hydrogels achieve skin-matched modulus (370 kPa), high tensile strength (4.3 MPa), toughness (27.2 MJ/m 3 ) and extensibility (1447.9 % fracture strain), surpassing most of the reported water-rich hydrogels. Crucially, the hydrogel maintains stable ionic conductivity and biocompatibility, functioning as a conformal electrode that captures precisely electrocardiogram signals during vigorous physical activities. Therefore, this work provides a facile method for designing hydrogels that reconcile tissue-like functionality with engineered performance, holding implications for their practical applications in biomaterial fields.
研究领域:
生物材料科学
·
高分子科学
·
材料工程
·
生物医学工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
PubMed
高影响因子
Small
·
2024
·
IF 13
Hao Huang,Weijie Wang,Zexin Liu,Hanxin Jian,Bing Xue,Liping Zhu,Kan Yue,Shuguang Yang
The ligament, which connects bones at the joints, has both high water content and excellent mechanical properties in living organisms. However, it is still challenging to fabricate fibrous materials that possess high water content and ligament-like mechanical characteristics simultaneously. Herein, the design and preparation of a ligament-mimicking multicomponent fiber is reported through stepwise assembly of polysaccharide, calcium, and dopamine. In simulated body fluid, the resulting fiber has a water content of 40 wt%, while demonstrating strength of ≈120 MPa, a Young's modulus of ≈3 GPa, and a toughness of ≈25 MJ m −3 . Additionally, the multicomponent fiber exhibits excellent creep and fatigue resistance, as well as biocompatibility to support cell growth in vitro. These findings suggest that the fiber has potential for engineering high-performance artificial ligament.
研究领域:
生物材料
·
组织工程
·
机械工程
·
生物医学工程
✓ 已验证
DOI
PubMed
高影响因子
MACROMOLECULAR RAPID COMMUNICATIONS
·
2018
·Vol. 39
·期 23
·1800474
·
IF 4.441
Tianqi Liu,Shuai Lu,Xin Peng,Chen Jiao,Jianan Zhang,Mei Han,Huiliang Wang
Some marine creatures like jellyfish have gel-like bodies consisting mostly of water (above 95 wt%). Yet, their gel-like bodies still show quite good mechanical properties and can respond to external stimuli. Artificial hydrogels with very high water content are generally extremely weak, and hence their practical applications are strongly limited. Inspired by jellyfish, tough and biocompatible poly(vinyl alcohol)/sodium polyacrylate (PVA/PAANa) hydrogels with very high equilibrium water content (98.23–99.58 wt%) are developed. The equilibrium swollen PVA/PAANa hydrogels show good mechanical properties, with elastic modulus, tensile strength, and elongation up to 0.046 MPa, 0.14 MPa, and 206%, respectively, very close to those of jellyfish mesoglea. Moreover, the PVA/PAANa hydrogels can respond to external multi-stimuli distinctly, such as metal cations, pH, and salts. Very impressively, the PVA/PAANa hydrogel can easily distinguish tap water from deionized water, and its detection limit of metal cations can be as low as 10 −4 mol L −1 . Cell cytotoxicity tests and in vivo biocompatibility tests prove that the PVA/PAANa hydrogels have excellent biocompatibility. The tough, stimuli-responsive, and biocompatible hydrogels with very high water content may find a variety of practical applications in load-bearing biomaterials, detection, sensors, and agricultural fields.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
生物材料
·
生物医学工程
·
化学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
PubMed
高影响因子
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）