Issue 39, 2014

An intermolecular quadruple hydrogen-bonding strategy to fabricate self-healing and highly deformable polyurethane hydrogels

Abstract

The development of hydrogels possessing both excellent self-healing and mechanical properties in hydrogel science due to their tight relationship with the many potential application scopes is of great significance. Herein, a novel class of polyurethane (PU) hydrogels with intermolecular quadruple hydrogen-bonding interactions were designed and fabricated by the copolymerization of poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate end-capped urethane ether prepolymer (PU-PEGMA) with 2-(3-(6-methyl-4-oxo-1,4-dihydropyrimidin-2-yl)ureido)ethyl methacrylate (SCMHBMA) bearing the 2-ureido-4-pyrimidone (UPy) unit. The effects of the SCMHBMA content on the self-healing behaviors and mechanical properties of the PU hydrogels were investigated. The results indicate that the fabricated PU hydrogels can autonomously and rapidly repair occurring incisions or cracks at ambient temperature without the need for any stimulus and possess high deformability under both tensile and compressive stress and strong recoverability upon removal of stress, thus exhibiting outstanding self-healing, elasticity, robustness and toughness. The presence of UPy units in PU macromolecular chains is a decisive factor endowing the PU hydrogels with these characteristics.

Graphical abstract: An intermolecular quadruple hydrogen-bonding strategy to fabricate self-healing and highly deformable polyurethane hydrogels

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
28 May 2014
Accepted
17 Aug 2014
First published
19 Aug 2014

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2014,2, 6878-6885

An intermolecular quadruple hydrogen-bonding strategy to fabricate self-healing and highly deformable polyurethane hydrogels

Y. Lin and G. Li, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2014, 2, 6878 DOI: 10.1039/C4TB00862F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements