Journal article
Injectable and moldable hydrogels for use in sensitive and wide range strain sensing applications
Biopolymers, v 111(6)
Jun 2020
PMID: 32353200
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Recently, the use of hybrid double network (DN) hydrogels has become prominent due to their enhanced mechanical properties, which has opened the door for new applications of these soft materials. Only a few of these gels have demonstrated both injectable and moldable capabilities. In this work, we report the mechanical properties, gauge factor (GF) values and demonstrate both the injectability and moldability of a gelatin/polyacrylamide DN hydrogel. We optimized several parameters, such as, gelatin to polyacrylamide ratio, reactant concentrations and metal ion concentration, to produce a gelatin/polyacrylamide hydrogel with superior mechanical properties. The highest water content gel was capable of withstanding strains of 5000% before failure. These gels were facilely injected into molds where they effectively changed shape and maintained similar properties prior to remolding. When 20 mM calcium was doped into a similar gel, a tensile strength of 1.71 MPa was achieved. Aside from improving the mechanical properties of the gels, both Ca2+ and Mg2+ also improved their conductivity, so they were tested for use as strain sensors. The sensitivity of the hydrogel strain sensors were measured using the GF. For the 20 mM Ca2+ hydrogel, these GF values ranged from 1.63 to 6.85 for strains of 100% to 2100% respectively. Additionally, the sensors showed good stability over continuous cyclic stretching, demonstrating their long term reliability for strain sensing.
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Details
- Title
- Injectable and moldable hydrogels for use in sensitive and wide range strain sensing applications
- Creators
- Zhen Qiao - Drexel UniversityMatthew Mieles - Drexel UniversityHai‐Feng Ji - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Biopolymers, v 111(6)
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Inc
- Number of pages
- 11
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Materials Science and Engineering; Chemistry
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000529620700001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85084203859
- Other Identifier
- 991019330810904721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Biophysics