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A Facile Method Synthesizing Hydrogel Using Hybranched Polyether Amine (hPEA) as Coinitiator and Crosslinker
Author(s) -
Liu Zhiyong,
Zhang Changxu,
Xu Hongjie,
Ma Xiaodong,
Shi Zixing,
Yin Jie
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
macromolecular chemistry and physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.57
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1521-3935
pISSN - 1022-1352
DOI - 10.1002/macp.201700251
Subject(s) - self healing hydrogels , ammonium persulfate , swelling , polymer chemistry , elongation , ultimate tensile strength , chemical engineering , toughness , materials science , rheology , chemistry , composite material , polymerization , polymer , engineering
Inhomogeneities are responsible for the poor mechanical properties of hydrogels. To achieve good performances, this study reports here the design and synthesis of hydrogels with negligible defects named as initiator‐crosslinker (IC) hydrogel where hybranched polyether amine (hPEA) performs as both coinitiator and crosslinker. The initiation mechanism used in this system is classical but the crosslinking mechanism is different from the conventional hydrogels. A series of hydrogels with various mechanical properties are synthesized by varying the content ratio of coinitiator hPEA and initiator ammonium persulfate. Tensile tests demonstrated that IC hydrogels had excellent mechanical properties elongation at break up to 3000%. The toughness calculated from stress–strain curve highly depended on the content of hPEA and the largest one is about 4.02 MJ m −3 which is much higher than the conventional hydrogels (0.03 MJ m −3 ). Rheological and swelling results also indicated the obtained hydrogels are indeed crosslinked by both chemical bond and physical interaction.