An impact resistant hydrogel enabled by bicontinuous phase structure and hierarchical energy dissipation

Qiu, Yunfeng; Wu, Liang; Liu, Sijun; Yu, Wei

doi:10.1039/d2tb01693a

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 47 publications

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“…To survive the impact, a material must exhibit high strength and toughness at high strain rates to effectively dissipate the kinetic impact energy. A prevalent approach involves designing high-energy-dissipating materials via various toughening mechanisms, such as bioinspired multilayer or bouligand assemblies, − fiber reinforcement, − phase separation, , and molecular clogging . However, the intrinsic rigidity of these materials greatly restricts their applicability in modern wearable and buffering scenarios, which demand adaptability and compliance with the moving human body or underlying objects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entropy-Driven Design of Highly Impact-Stiffening Supramolecular Polymer Networks with Salt-Bridge Hydrogen Bonds

Qiao,

Wu,

Sun

et al. 2024

J. Am. Chem. Soc.

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Impact-stiffening materials that undergo a strain rate-induced soft-to-rigid transition hold great promise as soft armors in the protection of the human body and equipment. However, current impact-stiffening materials, such as polyborosiloxanes and shear-thickening fluids, often exhibit a limited impact-stiffening response. Herein, we propose a design strategy for fabricating highly impact-stiffening supramolecular polymer networks by leveraging high-entropy-penalty physical interactions. We synthesized a fully biobased supramolecular polymer comprising poly(α-thioctic acid) and arginine clusters, whose chain dynamics are governed by highly specific guanidinium-carboxylate salt-bridge hydrogen bonds. The resulting material exhibits an exceptional impact-stiffening response of ∼2100 times, transitioning from a soft dissipating state (21 kPa, 0.1 Hz) to a highly stiffened glassy state (45.3 MPa, 100 Hz) with increasing strain rates. Moreover, the material's high energy-dissipating and hot-melting properties bring excellent damping performance and easy hybridization with other scaffolds. This entropy-driven approach paves the way for the development of nextgeneration soft, sustainable, and impact-resistant materials.

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