Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39237555.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-52264-y and PMC identifier 11377714.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
Hydrogels, provided that they integrate strength and toughness at desired high content of water, promise in load-bearing tissues such as articular cartilage, ligaments, tendons. Many developed strategies impart hydrogels with some mechanical properties akin to natural tissues, but compromise water content. Herein, a strategy deprotonation-complexation-reprotonation is proposed to prepare polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels with water content as high as ~80% and favorable mechanical properties, including tensile strength of 7.4 MPa, elongation of around 1350%, and fracture toughness of 12.4 kJ m<sup>-2</sup>. The key to water holding yet improved mechanical properties lies in controllable nucleation for refinement of crystalline morphology. With nearly constant water content, mechanical properties of as-prepared hydrogels are successfully tailored by tuning crystal nuclei density via deprotonation degree and their distribution uniformity via complexation temperature. This work provides a nucleation concept to design robust hydrogels with desired water content, holding implications for practical application in tissue engineering.