Ultrastrong eutectogels engineered via integrated mechanical training in molecular and structural engineering

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 2589 - 13
• Main Authors: Xu, Chenggong, Xie, Ao, Hu, Haiyuan, Wang, Zhengde, Feng, Yange, Wang, Daoai, Liu, Weimin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 16.03.2025; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 147/135; 639/301/923/1027; 639/638/298/923/1027; 639/638/298/923/3931; Chemical bonds; Fabrication; Fracture strength; Gels; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogen bonding; Hydrogen embrittlement; Mechanical properties; multidisciplinary; Polymers; Polyvinyl alcohol; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Solvents; Stretchability; Stretching; Structural engineering
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57800-y

Ultrastrong gels possess generally ultrahigh modulus and strength yet exhibit limited stretchability owing to hardening and embrittlement accompanied by reinforcement. This dilemma is overcome here by using hyperhysteresis-mediated mechanical training that hyperhysteresis allows structural retardation to prevent the structural recovery of network after training, resulting in simply single pre-stretching training. This training strategy introduces deep eutectic solvent into polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels to achieve hyperhysteresis via hydrogen bonding nanocrystals on molecular engineering, performs single pre-stretching training to produce hierarchical nanofibrils on structural engineering, and fabricates chemically cross-linked second network to enable stretchability. The resultant eutectogels display exceptional mechanical performances with enormous fracture strength (85.2 MPa), Young’s modulus (98 MPa) and work of rupture (130.6 MJ m −3 ), which compare favorably to those of previous gels. The presented strategy is generalizable to other solvents and polymer for engineering ultrastrong organogels, and further inspires advanced fabrication technologies for force-induced self-reinforcement materials. Ultrastrong gels possess generally high modulus and strength yet limited stretchability. Here, the authors overcome this by using a hyperhysteresis-mediated mechanical training strategy to engineer eutectogels displaying improved mechanical performances.