Synonyms
Complex materials; Hydrogels; Polymeric materials
Definition
Double-network hydrogels (DN gels) are a special class of interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogels which show extremely high mechanical strength and fracture toughness based on an internal fracture mechanism [1].
Introduction
DN gels, invented in 2003, are one class of the toughest hydrogels. Despite containing 70–95 wt% of water, the mechanical properties of DN gels are comparable to those of articular cartilage and industrial rubbers. For example, the DN gels consisting of poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid) (PAMPS) as the first network and polyacrylamide (PAAm) as the second network have tensile fracture stress and tearing fracture energy as high as 8 MPa and 4,000 J/m2, respectively. These values are much higher than those of conventional single network hydrogels, i.e., ∼0.1 MPa and ∼10 J/m2 for the single PAAm gels [1, 2].
Tough DN hydrogels have a significant contrasting topological...
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References
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Nakajima, T., Gong, J.P. (2015). Double-Network Hydrogels: Soft and Tough IPN. In: Kobayashi, S., Müllen, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Polymeric Nanomaterials. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29648-2_67
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29648-2_67
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