Nano and Heterogeneous Materials Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210094, China.
State Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China.
Macromol Rapid Commun. 2023 Oct;44(19):e2300324. doi: 10.1002/marc.202300324. Epub 2023 Jul 25.
Drawing inspiration from Salicornia, a plant with the remarkable ability to thrive in harsh environments, a conductive hydrogel with high toughness and ultra-stability is reported. Specifically, the strategy of pre-cross-linking followed by secondary soaking in saturated salt solutions is introduced to prepare the PAAM-alginate conductive hydrogel with dual cross-linked dual network structure. It allows the alginate network to achieve complete cross-linking, fully leveraging the structural advantages of the PAAM-alginate conductive hydrogel. The highest tensile strength of the obtained conductive hydrogel is 697.3 kPa and the fracture energy can reach 69.59 kJ m , significantly higher than human cartilage and natural rubbers. Specially, by introducing saturated salt solutions within the hydrogel, the colligative properties endow the PAAM-alginate conductive hydrogel with excellent water retention and anti-freezing properties. The prepared conductive hydrogels can work stably in an ambient environment for more than 7 days and still maintain good mechanical behavior and ionic conductivity at -50 °C. Benefiting from the excellent comprehensive performance of conductive hydrogels, wearable human-machine interfaces that can withstand large joint movements and are adapted for extreme environments are prepared to achieve precise control of robots and prostheses, respectively.
受具有在恶劣环境中茁壮成长能力的盐角草启发，研究人员制备了一种具有高韧性和超稳定性的导电水凝胶。具体来说，采用预交联后再二次浸泡在饱和盐溶液中的策略，制备了具有双重交联双网络结构的 PAAM-海藻酸盐导电水凝胶。该策略使海藻酸盐网络能够实现完全交联，充分利用 PAAM-海藻酸盐导电水凝胶的结构优势。所得到的导电水凝胶的最大拉伸强度为 697.3 kPa，断裂能可达 69.59 kJ m -2 ，明显高于人体软骨和天然橡胶。特别地，通过在水凝胶内引入饱和盐溶液，该凝聚性质赋予了 PAAM-海藻酸盐导电水凝胶优异的保水和抗冻结性能。所制备的导电水凝胶在环境温度下稳定工作超过 7 天，并且在-50°C 时仍保持良好的机械性能和离子电导率。得益于导电水凝胶的优异综合性能，分别制备了可承受大关节运动和适应极端环境的可穿戴人机界面，以实现对机器人和假肢的精确控制。
