Wu, S., Zhu, M., Lu, D. et al. (8 more authors) (2019) Self-curing super-stretchable polymer/microgel complex coacervate gels without covalent bond formation. Chemical Science, 10 (38). pp. 8832-8839. ISSN 2041-6520
Abstract
Elastic physical gels are highly desirable because they can be conveniently prepared and readily shaped. Unfortunately, many elastic physical gels prepared in water require in situ free-radical polymerization during the gel formation stage. In contrast, complex coacervate gels are physical gels that can be prepared by simply mixing two pre-formed oppositely-charged polyelectrolytes. However, as far as we are aware, highly elastic complex coacervate gels have not yet been reported. Herein, we combine polyanionic microgel particles with a well-known commercially-available cationic polyelectrolyte to prepare polymer/microgel complex coacervate (PMCC) physical gels. This new family of gels requires annealing at only 37 °C and behaves like a covalent gel but does not form covalent bonds. Thermal reconfiguration of the dynamic ionic bonds transforms the shapeable pre-gel into a highly elastic gel that is super-stretchable, adhesive, self-healing, highly swellable and can be further toughened using Ca2+ as an ionic crosslinker. Our PMCC gels have excellent potential for applications as engineering gels and structural biomaterials, as well as for wound healing and water purification.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Chemistry (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 22 Oct 2019 13:27 |
Last Modified: | 22 Oct 2019 13:27 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1039/c9sc02555c |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:152517 |