Biomimetic strain-stiffening in fully synthetic dynamic-covalent hydrogel networks.

ABSTRACT: Mechanoresponsiveness is a ubiquitous feature of soft materials in nature; biological tissues exhibit both strain-stiffening and self-healing in order to prevent and repair deformation-induced damage. These features remain challenging to replicate in synthetic and flexible polymeric materials. In recreating both the mechanical and structural features of soft biological tissues, hydrogels have been often explored for a number of biological and biomedical applications. However, synthetic polymeric hydrogels rarely replicate the mechanoresponsive character of natural biological materials, failing to match both strain-stiffening and self-healing functionality. Here, strain-stiffening behavior is realized in fully synthetic ideal network hydrogels prepared from flexible 4-arm polyethylene glyco

SUBMITTER: Ollier RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10171040 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature