Rapid preparation of N-CNTs/P(AA- co-AM) composite hydrogel via frontal polymerization and its mechanical and conductive properties

Bin Li; Xiaojia Xu; Zhigang Hu; Yongjing Li; Mengjing Zhou; Jizhen Liu; Yajun Jiang; Peng Wang

doi:10.1039/d2ra02003c

Rapid preparation of N-CNTs/P(AA- co-AM) composite hydrogel via frontal polymerization and its mechanical and conductive properties

RSC Adv. 2022 Jun 29;12(30):19022-19028. doi: 10.1039/d2ra02003c.

Authors

Bin Li¹, Xiaojia Xu¹, Zhigang Hu¹, Yongjing Li², Mengjing Zhou¹, Jizhen Liu¹, Yajun Jiang¹, Peng Wang³

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan Polytechnic University Wuhan Hubei 430023 China lb420@whpu.edu.cn.
² Hubei Key Laboratory of Theory and Application of Advanced Materials Mechanics, Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan Hubei 430070 China.
³ Wuhan Second Ship Design and Research Institute Wuhan 430205 China.

Abstract

Deep eutectic solvent (DES) was prepared by using acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AM) as hydrogen bonding donors (HBD) and choline chloride (ChCl) as hydrogen bonding receptors (HBA). Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs) were dispersed in DES as fillers, and N-CNTs/P(AA-co-AM) composite hydrogels were prepared by FP. The interaction mode between the hydrogel and N-CNTs was characterized by Fourier infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The mechanical properties, pH response and electrical conductivity of the composite hydrogels were studied. The results showed that the mechanical properties of the hydrogel were significantly enhanced with the increase of N-CNT content. The tensile strength and compressive strength of the FP4 composite hydrogel reached 5.42 MPa and 4.29 MPa, respectively. Due to the dissociation of carboxyl groups in AA in an alkaline environment the composite hydrogel showed excellent pH response performance. The conductivity of the hydrogel was also found to be improved with the content of N-CNTs. When the content of N-CNTs is 1.0 wt%, the conductivity of the hydrogel was 4.2 times higher than that of the hydrogel without N-CNTs, and connecting it to a circuit can make an LED lamp emit bright light. In this study, a simple and green method was proposed to prepare composite hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties and electrical conductivity by FP of DES in less than 5 min.