ACS Nano, Dong Xiaochen, Nanjing University of Technology and others: A new strategy for rapid formation of self-healing hydrogels in a few minutes!

MXene-based hydrogels are a booming family of soft materials and have recently become promising candidates for use in retractable electronic products. However, most of the current work still uses MXenes as conductive nanofillers.



Recently, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Husam N. Alshareef and Professor Dong Xiaochen of Nanjing University of Technology reported that Ti3C3Tx MXene can activate the rapid gelation of different polymer hydrogels, including acrylic acid (AA), acrylamide ( AM), N,N-dimethylacrylamide (DMA), N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM), hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), aniline (ANI) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate ( PEGDA) and so on. Even the lipophilic monomer methyl methacrylate (MMA) can gel with the help of hydrophilic MXenes after 3 days.







Article points

1) By adjusting the dynamic interaction between MXene and polymer, a hydrogel with excellent extensibility, adhesion and self-repairing ability can be obtained. Interestingly, when MXenes are mixed with other prefabricated polymer chains such as gelatin, agar, PVA, sodium alginate and chitosan, the induced gelation process is much slower than when mixed with monomers.







2) Due to the inherent photothermal behavior of Ti3C3Tx and the heterogeneous phase transition characteristics of the polymer, the produced polymer-MXene hydrogel exhibits unique thermosensitive group actuation under near-infrared light irradiation, accompanied by rapid Shape change.







In general, the mechanism of this rapid gelation is due to Ti3C2Tx MXene being prone to free radicals and the multi-scale molecular interaction between MXene and the polymer. In addition, using MXene as a dynamic crosslinking agent can obtain excellent mechanical properties, adhesion and self-healing ability.



references

Gang Ge, et al, Ti3C2Tx MXene-Activated Fast Gelation of Stretchable and Self-Healing Hydrogels: A Molecular Approach, ACS Nano, 2021

DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c07998

https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.0c07998


Source of information: Wonders

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