Graphene/cyclodextrin-based nanocomposite hydrogel with enhanced strength and thermo-responsive ability

Pang Zhu; Yonghong Deng; Chaoyang Wang

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.06.081

Graphene/cyclodextrin-based nanocomposite hydrogel with enhanced strength and thermo-responsive ability

Carbohydr Polym. 2017 Oct 15:174:804-811. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.06.081. Epub 2017 Jun 28.

Authors

Pang Zhu¹, Yonghong Deng², Chaoyang Wang³

Affiliations

¹ Research Institute of Materials Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
² Department of Materials Science & Engineering, South University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen 518055, China. Electronic address: yhdeng08@163.com.
³ Research Institute of Materials Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China. Electronic address: zhywang@scut.edu.cn.

PMID: 28821134
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.06.081

Abstract

Dual crosslinked system has been proved to be an efficient method to obtain tough and high strength hydrogels. Herein, we synthesized a novel graphene oxide/p(acrylamide-co-poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate)/α-cyclodextrin (GO/P(AM-co-PEGMA)/CD) physical dual crosslinked hydrogel via copolymerization of AM and PEGMA in the α-CD/GO solution. The polymer main chains adsorb onto the GO surface resulting in the first crosslinked system and multiple hydrogen bonds between α-CDs that thread on the PEGMA side chains establish the second crosslinked system. The GO/P(AM-co-PEGMA)/CD hydrogel exhibits favorable tensile properties with fracture strain of 1800% and high fracture stress of 660kPa; in addition, the hydrogel can bear large compressive stress (2.7MPa) at strain of 85% without rupture. Furthermore, physical dual crosslinked system endows the GO/P(AM-co-PEGMA)/CD hydrogel with thermoplastic ability and thermo-responsive shape memory behavior. This facial one-pot method will contribute to design and application of high performance hydrogel.

Keywords: Acrylamide (AM, PubChem CID: 6579); Dual crosslinked system; Graphene oxide; Graphene oxide (GO, PubChem CID: 124202900); Hydrogel; Poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (PEGMA, No PubChem CID is found); α-Cyclodextrin; α-Cyclodextrin (α-CD, PubChem CID: 444913).