Hydrogels that have both permanent chemical crosslinks and transient physical crosslinks are good model systems to represent tough gels. Such "dual-crosslink" hydrogels can be prepared either by simultaneous polymerization and dual crosslinking (one-pot synthesis) or by diffusion/complexation of the physical crosslinks to the chemical network (diffusion method). To study the effects of the preparation methods and of the crosslinking ratio on the mechanical properties, the equilibrium swelling of the dual-crosslink gels need to be examined. Since most of these gels are polyelectrolytes, their swelling properties are complex, so no systematic study has been reported. In this work, we synthesized model dual-crosslink gels with metal-ligand coordination bonds as physical crosslinks by both methods, and we proposed a simple way of adding salt to control the swelling ratio prepared by ion diffusion. Tensile and linear rheological tests of the gels at the same swelling ratio showed that during the one-pot synthesis, free radical polymerization was affected by the transition metal ions used as physical crosslinkers, while the presence of electrostatic interactions did not affect the role of the metal complexes on the mechanical properties.
Keywords: metal–ligand coordination; swelling; tough hydrogel.