Gong Kai, Hou Lei, Wu Peiyi
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China.
Adv Mater. 2022 May;34(19):e2201065. doi: 10.1002/adma.202201065. Epub 2022 Apr 3.
Herein, the supramolecular plastic-like hydrogel (SPH) is introduced as a platform to fabricate sustainable plastics with ultrahigh stiffness and strength as well as water-assisted arbitrarily shapeable capability. The transparent plastics are constructed from SPHs of cellulose ether/polycarboxylic acid complexes and demonstrate mechanical robustness with Young's modulus up to 3.4 GPa and tensile strength up to 124.0 MPa, superior or comparable to most common plastics. Meanwhile, the shape of the plastics can be reversibly engineered by air drying of the SPHs with diverse 2D/3D shapes and structures, which are generated conveniently via origami, kirigami, embossing, etc., in virtue of plastic deformation and shape memory effect of SPHs. On the basis of multi-dimensional infrared-spectral analysis, it is revealed that the dense acid-acid and acid-ether hydrogen (H)-bonding network in the plastic is responsible for the mechanical robustness while the evolution of water-polymer H-bonds into polymer-polymer H-bonds during air drying contributes to the shape fixing. This work provides a novel method of manufacturing sustainable plastics with simultaneous strong mechanical performance and convenient processibility from hydrogels with plastic-like mechanical behavior.
在此，超分子类塑料水凝胶（SPH）被引入作为一个平台，用于制造具有超高刚度和强度以及水辅助任意可成型能力的可持续塑料。这些透明塑料由纤维素醚/多元羧酸复合物的SPH构建而成，表现出机械稳健性，杨氏模量高达3.4 GPa，拉伸强度高达124.0 MPa，优于或可与大多数常见塑料相媲美。同时，通过对具有各种二维/三维形状和结构的SPH进行空气干燥，可以可逆地设计塑料的形状，这些形状通过折纸、剪纸、压花等借助SPH的塑性变形和形状记忆效应方便地生成。基于多维红外光谱分析，揭示了塑料中致密的酸酸和酸醚氢键网络是机械稳健性的原因，而空气干燥过程中水 - 聚合物氢键向聚合物 - 聚合物氢键的演变有助于形状固定。这项工作提供了一种从具有类塑料机械行为的水凝胶制造具有同时强大机械性能和便捷加工性的可持续塑料的新方法。
