Heidarian Pejman, Kouzani Abbas Z
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3216, Australia.
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3216, Australia.
Int J Biol Macromol. 2023 Apr 15;234:123822. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123822. Epub 2023 Feb 22.
Crosslinks are the building blocks of hydrogels and play an important role in their overall properties. They may either be reversible and dynamic allowing for autonomous self-healing properties, or permanent and static resulting in robustness and mechanical strength. Hence, a combination of crosslinks is often required to engineer the 3D network of hydrogels with both autonomous self-healing and required robustness for strain sensing application; however, this complicates the fabrication of such hydrogels. The facile, yet versatile, approach used in this study is to forgo the use of extra crosslinks and instead rely solely on the properties of magnetic nanocellulose to fabricate a tough, stretchy, yet magneto-responsive, ionic conductive ferrogel for strain sensing. The ferrogel also gives stimuli-free and autonomous self-healing capacity, as well as the ability to monitor real-time strain under external magnetic actuation. The ferrogel also functions as a touch-screen pen. Based on our findings, this study has the potential to advance the rational design of multifunctional hydrogels, with applications in soft and flexible strain sensors, health monitoring and soft robotics.
交联是水凝胶的构建单元，对其整体性能起着重要作用。它们既可以是可逆且动态的，具有自主自愈特性；也可以是永久且静态的，从而具备坚固性和机械强度。因此，通常需要结合多种交联方式来构建水凝胶的三维网络，使其既具有自主自愈能力，又具备应变传感应用所需的坚固性；然而，这使得此类水凝胶的制备变得复杂。本研究采用的简便却通用的方法是，不使用额外的交联剂，而是仅依靠磁性纳米纤维素的特性来制备一种坚韧、可拉伸且具有磁响应性的离子导电铁凝胶用于应变传感。该铁凝胶还具有无刺激的自主自愈能力，以及在外部磁驱动下监测实时应变的能力。这种铁凝胶还能用作触摸屏笔。基于我们的研究结果，本研究有潜力推动多功能水凝胶的合理设计，应用于柔软灵活的应变传感器、健康监测和软体机器人领域。
