Nano-structured smart hydrogels with rapid response and high elasticity

Lie-Wen Xia, Rui Xie, Xiao-Jie Ju, Wei Wang, Qianming Chen and Liang-Yin Chu ()
Additional contact information
Lie-Wen Xia: School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University
Rui Xie: School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University
Xiao-Jie Ju: School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University
Wei Wang: School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University
Qianming Chen: State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, Sichuan University
Liang-Yin Chu: School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Smart hydrogels, or stimuli-responsive hydrogels, are three-dimensional networks composed of crosslinked hydrophilic polymer chains that are able to dramatically change their volume and other properties in response to environmental stimuli such as temperature, pH and certain chemicals. Rapid and significant response to environmental stimuli and high elasticity are critical for the versatility of such smart hydrogels. Here we report the synthesis of smart hydrogels which are rapidly responsive, highly swellable and stretchable, by constructing a nano-structured architecture with activated nanogels as nano-crosslinkers. The nano-structured smart hydrogels show very significant and rapid stimuli-responsive characteristics, as well as highly elastic properties to sustain high compressions, resist slicing and withstand high level of deformation, such as bending, twisting and extensive stretching. Because of the concurrent rapid and significant stimuli-response and high elasticity, these nano-structured smart hydrogels may expand the scope of hydrogel applications, and provide enhanced performance in their applications.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3226 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3226

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3226

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().