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Ultrastretchable, Tough, and Notch‐Insensitive Hydrogels Formed with Spherical Polymer Brush Crosslinker
Author(s) -
Zhang Rui,
Wang Lei,
Shen Zheqi,
Li Min,
Guo Xuhong,
Yao Yuan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.201700455
Subject(s) - self healing hydrogels , materials science , acrylic acid , polystyrene , polymer , swelling , polymer chemistry , ultimate tensile strength , toughness , composite material , chemical engineering , nanoparticle , copolymer , nanotechnology , engineering
Spherical polymer brushes, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)‐grafted polystyrene nanoparticle (PAA@PS), are employed as the macro‐crosslinker to prepare PAA hydrogels. Benefitting from the innumerable hydrogen bonds between highly entangled PAA chains both in bulk and on the polymer brush, the PAA/PAA@PS hydrogels combine desirable stretchability, toughness, and notch‐insensitivity. The uniaxial tensile tests show a very high fracture elongation up to 9.1 × 10 3 % while the fracture toughness reaches 3.0 MJ m −3 and the maximum swelling ratio of the hydrogel can be 2.0 × 10 3 as well. After being loaded with silver nanoparticles, the PAA/PAA@PS hydrogels are employed as a recyclable catalyst successfully.