Zhao Hanyu, Jia Ying, Cai Ling, Wang Xiaochun, He Minghui, Chen Guangxue
State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, School of Light Industry and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Gels. 2025 May 31;11(6):421. doi: 10.3390/gels11060421.
Most existing polymer plastics are nonreusable and also exhibit poor biocompatibility and a poor mechanical strength-tensile strain balance. Herein, using deep eutectic polymers, we prepare reusable hydrophilic supramolecular dry gel plastics with balanced stress-strain characteristics through the hydrogen bonding of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with betaine (Bta). As PVA exhibits crystalline stiffness and abundant hydrogen-bonding sites, it is employed as a network backbone in the proposed deep eutectic supramolecular polymers. In the prepared PVA/Bta dry gel plastics, PVA and Bta are dynamically and physically crosslinked through high-density hydrogen bonding, resulting in a yield strength of ~109 MPa and toughness of up to ~210.92 MJ m. In addition, these plastics can be recycled at least five times in an aqueous environment while maintaining a mechanical strength of 100 MPa. Furthermore, the proposed polymers exhibit high transparency (92%) in the visible spectrum. We expect these polymers to be used in synthesizing biodegradable dry gel plastics, as well as to lead to the development of recyclable deep eutectic PVA/Bta polymers with remarkable strength.
大多数现有的聚合物塑料不可重复使用，并且生物相容性差，机械强度与拉伸应变的平衡也不佳。在此，我们使用低共熔聚合物，通过聚乙烯醇（PVA）与甜菜碱（Bta）之间的氢键作用，制备出具有平衡应力 - 应变特性的可重复使用的亲水性超分子干凝胶塑料。由于PVA具有结晶刚性和丰富的氢键位点，因此在提出的低共熔超分子聚合物中用作网络骨架。在所制备的PVA/Bta干凝胶塑料中，PVA和Bta通过高密度氢键进行动态和物理交联，产生的屈服强度约为109 MPa，韧性高达约210.92 MJ/m³。此外，这些塑料在水环境中可至少循环使用五次，同时保持100 MPa的机械强度。此外，所提出的聚合物在可见光谱中具有高透明度（92%）。我们期望这些聚合物可用于合成可生物降解的干凝胶塑料，并推动具有卓越强度的可回收低共熔PVA/Bta聚合物的开发。
