高强韧自修复聚两性电解质超分子水凝胶

Tough and Self-healing Supramolecular Hydrogels Composed of Polyampholytes

聚两性电解质是指由带正电荷的单体和负电荷的单体无规共聚形成的一类聚合物。这类聚合物的分子链上同时含有正负电荷基团。通过聚两性电解质形成的超分子物理水凝胶(PA凝胶)由于优异的机械性能引起了人们广泛的关注。这类新型水凝胶不但具有高的强度和韧性,还具有抗疲劳和自修复能力,以及良好的生物相容性,因此可以作为一种理想的结构性生物材料来替代人体损伤的组织,如软骨和肌腱等。本文将系统总结影响PA凝胶性能的因素,包括正负离子电荷比、单体浓度和交联剂浓度。此外,我们还将讨论PA凝胶的链结构、增韧机理、自修复机理和断裂行为,并对其在不同领域的初步应用做了简单阐述。最后,我们对PA凝胶研究中还存在的问题和将来一些可能的研究方向进行了简单的总结和展望。

Polyampholyte hydrogels have attracted great attention due to their excellent performance. This new type of hydrogels not only show high strength and toughness, but also show fatigue resistance and self-healing, along with biocompatibility. Thus, those hydrogels have great potential as structural biomaterials, such as cartilage and tendon. In this review paper, we firstly describe the factors that influence the performance of PA hydrogels, including the charge ratio of cationic monomer and anionic monomer, the monomer concentration and the crosslinker concentration. Then we discuss the chain structure, toughening mechanism, self-healing mechanism, fracture behavior, and some applications of PA hydrogels. Finally, we summarize some open questions on PA hydrogels that may provide opportunities.