Toughening Hydrogels with Fibrillar Connected Double Networks

Abstract Biological tissues, such as tendons or cartilage, possess high strength and toughness with very low plastic deformations. In contrast, current strategies to prepare tough hydrogels commonly utilize energy dissipation mechanisms based on physical bonds that lead to irreversible large plastic deformations, thus limiting their load‐bearing applications. This article reports a strategy to toughen hydrogels using fibrillar connected double networks (fc‐DN), which consist of two distinct but chemically interconnected polymer networks, that is, a polyacrylamide network and an acrylated agarose fibril network. The fc‐DN design allows efficient stress transfer between the two networks and high fibril alignment…

• DL
  Diamond Light Source

  Award: SM34102‐1
• AO
  Academy of Finland

  Awards: 331015, 330214, 330214, 346108, 331015, 346108
• CS
  China Scholarship Council

  Award: 202207960015
• HE
  H2020 European Research Council

  Award: 742829