Strong, tough, rapid-recovery, and fatigue-resistant hydrogels made of picot peptide fibres.

ABSTRACT: Hydrogels are promising soft materials as tissue engineering scaffolds, stretchable sensors, and soft robotics. Yet, it remains challenging to develop synthetic hydrogels with mechanical stability and durability similar to those of the connective tissues. Many of the necessary mechanical properties, such as high strength, high toughness, rapid recovery, and high fatigue resistance, generally cannot be established together using conventional polymer networks. Here we present a type of hydrogels comprising hierarchical structures of picot fibres made of copper-bound self-assembling peptide strands with zipped flexible hidden length. The redundant hidden lengths allow the fibres to be extended to dissipate mechanical load without reducing network connectivity, making the hydrogels robust agai

SUBMITTER: Xue B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10160100 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature