Chen Fan, Zhou Dan, Wang Jiahui, Li Tianzhen, Zhou Xiaohu, Gan Tiansheng, Handschuh-Wang Stephan, Zhou Xuechang
College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, P. R. China.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 May 28;57(22):6568-6571. doi: 10.1002/anie.201803366. Epub 2018 Apr 27.
Tough hydrogels, polymeric network structures with excellent mechanical properties (such as high stretchability and toughness), are emerging soft materials. Despite their remarkably mechanical features, tough hydrogels exhibit two flaws (freezing around the icing temperatures of water and drying under arid conditions). Inspired by cryoprotectants (CPAs) used in the inhibition of the icing of water in biological samples, a versatile and straightforward method is reported to fabricate extreme anti-freezing, non-drying CPA-based organohydrogels with long-term stability by partially displacing water molecules within the pre-fabricated hydrogels. CPA-based Ca-alginate/polyacrylamide (PAAm) tough hydrogels were successfully fabricated with glycerol, glycol, and sorbitol. The CPA-based organohydrogels remain unfrozen and mechanically flexible even up to -70 °C and are stable under ambient conditions or even vacuum.
坚韧水凝胶是一种新兴的软材料，它是具有优异机械性能（如高拉伸性和韧性）的聚合物网络结构。尽管具有显著的机械特性，但坚韧水凝胶存在两个缺陷（在水的结冰温度附近冻结以及在干旱条件下干燥）。受用于抑制生物样品中水结冰的冷冻保护剂（CPA）的启发，人们报道了一种通用且直接的方法，通过部分置换预制水凝胶中的水分子来制备具有长期稳定性的极端抗冻、不干燥的基于CPA的有机水凝胶。基于CPA的海藻酸钙/聚丙烯酰胺（PAAm）坚韧水凝胶已成功用甘油、二醇和山梨醇制备出来。基于CPA的有机水凝胶即使在高达-70°C时仍保持不冻结且机械柔韧性良好，并且在环境条件下甚至真空中都很稳定。
