Superstrong, superstiff, and conductive alginate hydrogels.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35641519.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-30691-z and PMC identifier 9156673.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
For the practical use of synthetic hydrogels as artificial biological tissues, flexible electronics, and conductive membranes, achieving requirements for specific mechanical properties is one of the most prominent issues. Here, we demonstrate superstrong, superstiff, and conductive alginate hydrogels with densely interconnecting networks implemented via simple reconstructing processes, consisting of anisotropic densification of pre-gel and a subsequent ionic crosslinking with rehydration. The reconstructed hydrogel exhibits broad ranges of exceptional tensile strengths (8-57 MPa) and elastic moduli (94-1,290 MPa) depending on crosslinking ions. This hydrogel can hold sufficient cations (e.g., Li<sup>+</sup>) within its gel matrix without compromising the mechanical performance and exhibits high ionic conductivity enough to be utilized as a gel electrolyte membrane. Further, this strategy can be applied to prepare mechanically outstanding, ionic-/electrical-conductive hydrogels by incorporating conducting polymer within the hydrogel matrix. Such hydrogels are easily laminated with strong interfacial adhesion by superficial de- and re-crosslinking processes, and the resulting layered hydrogel can act as a stable gel electrolyte membrane for an aqueous supercapacitor.
Medical subject headings
- Alginates
- Hydrogels