Super-tough, anti-fatigue, self-healable, anti-fogging, and UV shielding hybrid hydrogel prepared via simultaneous dual in situ sol-gel technique and radical polymerization

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. B, Materials for biology and medicine Vol. 7; no. 45; pp. 7162 - 7175
• Main Authors: Du, Juan, She, Xiaohong, Zhu, Wenli, Yang, Qiaoling, Zhang, Huaju, Tsou, Chihui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 07.12.2019
• Subjects: Acrylamide; Compression; Compressive strength; Crosslinking; Fatigue strength; Fogging; Hydrogels; Mechanical properties; Modulus of elasticity; Polymerization; Polymers; Shielding; Silicon dioxide; Sol-gel processes; Tensile strength; Tensile stress; Titanium dioxide
• ISSN: 2050-750X; 2050-7518
• DOI: 10.1039/c9tb01625b

In this work, we propose a universal strategy to construct tough hybrid hydrogels simply by a dual in situ sol-gel reaction of vinyltriethoxysilane (VTES) and tetrabutyl titanate (TBOT), as well as an in situ radical polymerization of acrylamide (AM) and VTES. Interestingly, nano-SiO and nano-TiO acted as both multifunctional hybrid crosslinker and nanofiller in this hybrid hydrogel. Meanwhile, covalent bonding existed between TiO and SiO , as well as polymers and SiO , and non-covalent interactions existed between TiO and polymers, as well as the organic skeleton. The obtained hybrid hydrogel exhibited high tensile strength (38.78-330.50 kPa), medium tensile elastic modulus (26.53-120.48 kPa), ultrahigh compression strength (1.86-6.22 MPa), unprecedented fatigue resistance, and self-healability due to its unique hierarchical inorganic hybrid crosslinking mechanism. In addition, this hydrogel also displayed considerable anti-fogging and UV-shielding property. Hence, this hybrid hydrogel will have many potential uses in soft robots, substitutes for load-bearing tissues, and optical devices.