Dual-network self-healing hydrogels composed of graphene oxide@nanocellulose and poly(AAm-co-AAc)

Abstract

A nature-inspired strategy is developed to build dual-network hydrogels made up of rigid graphene oxide-functionalized nanocellulose (GO@NC) network and flexible poly[acrylamide-co-(acrylic acid)] (poly(AAm-co-AAc)) network. A pre-stretching method is used to form a muscle-shape anisotropic architecture. The penetration of poly(AAm-co-AAc) flexible network relieves the stiffness of NC network, thus improving the average elongation at break from 86.2 % to 748.0 %. Compared with the poly(AAm-co-AAc), the average rupture tensile strength rises remarkably by 228.6 %. The dual-crosslinked strategy endows the GO@NC-poly(AAm-co-AAc) hydrogels with a fast, stable and repeatable self-healing ability, which can achieve 85.0 % of healing efficiency after only 600 s of self-healing and maintain 76.2 % of initial strength after 10 cycles of breaking-self-healing. The superb self-healing ability is similar to the muscle function. For potential applications, the hydrogels can achieve real-time, stable, and long-term sensing as smart wearable strain sensors (high gauge factor: 5.13), and can effectively purify Sudan IV wastewater as green recyclable adsorbents.

Keywords: Dual-crosslinked; Hydrogels; Muscle-inspired; Nanocellulose; Self-healing.