Liang Xiangyu, Chen Guangda, Lin Shaoting, Zhang Jiajun, Wang Liu, Zhang Pei, Wang Zeyu, Wang Zongbao, Lan Yang, Ge Qi, Liu Ji
Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Adv Mater. 2021 Jul;33(30):e2102011. doi: 10.1002/adma.202102011. Epub 2021 Jun 10.
Nature builds biological materials from limited ingredients, however, with unparalleled mechanical performances compared to artificial materials, by harnessing inherent structures across multi-length-scales. In contrast, synthetic material design overwhelmingly focuses on developing new compounds, and fails to reproduce the mechanical properties of natural counterparts, such as fatigue resistance. Here, a simple yet general strategy to engineer conventional hydrogels with a more than 100-fold increase in fatigue thresholds is reported. This strategy is proven to be universally applicable to various species of hydrogel materials, including polysaccharides (i.e., alginate, cellulose), proteins (i.e., gelatin), synthetic polymers (i.e., poly(vinyl alcohol)s), as well as corresponding polymer composites. These fatigue-resistant hydrogels exhibit a record-high fatigue threshold over most synthetic soft materials, making them low-cost, high-performance, and durable alternatives to soft materials used in those circumstances including robotics, artificial muscles, etc.
自然界利用有限的成分构建生物材料，然而，与人工材料相比，通过利用跨多长度尺度的固有结构，生物材料具有无与伦比的机械性能。相比之下，合成材料设计绝大多数集中在开发新化合物上，并且无法重现天然对应物的机械性能，如抗疲劳性。在此，报道了一种简单而通用的策略，用于设计疲劳阈值提高100倍以上的传统水凝胶。该策略被证明普遍适用于各种水凝胶材料，包括多糖（如藻酸盐、纤维素）、蛋白质（如明胶）、合成聚合物（如聚乙烯醇）以及相应的聚合物复合材料。这些抗疲劳水凝胶在大多数合成软材料中表现出创纪录的高疲劳阈值，使其成为机器人技术、人造肌肉等领域使用的软材料的低成本、高性能和耐用替代品。
