Synthesis and Fracture Process Analysis of Double Network Hydrogels with a Well-Defined First Network

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• 作者：Tasuku Nakajima ; Yuki Fukuda ; Takayuki Kurokawa ; Takamasa Sakai ; Ung-il Chung ; Jian Ping Gong
• 刊名：ACS Macro Letters
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：June 18, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：2
• 期：6
• 页码：518-521
• 全文大小：273K
• 年卷期：v.2,no.6(June 18, 2013)
• ISSN：2161-1653

文摘

To investigate the effect of inhomogeneity in the first network on the enormously high toughness of double network (DN) gels, we fabricated DN gels with a nearly homogeneous first network structure (named St-TPEG/PAAm DN gels) based on tetra-PEG (TPEG) gels via a molecular stent method. The St-TPEG/PAAm DN gels also show excellent mechanical properties and yielding-like phenomena comparable to conventional DN gels. This result demonstrates that the inhomogeneity within the first network is not essential for the specific toughening mechanism of DN gels. On the other hand, the St-TPEG/PAAm DN gels and conventional DN gels undergo substantially different fracture processes before the yielding point. This suggests the importance of a 鈥渉omogenization process鈥?for the yielding of DN gels. Since the St-TPEG/PAAm DN gels consist of a well-defined first network, they may serve as model DN gels in the future for further studies on fracture processes of DN gels.