Journal
JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE PART B-POLYMER PHYSICS
Volume 54, Issue 13, Pages 1227-1236Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1002/polb.24028
Keywords
Affine model; click chemistry; dangling ends; Gent model; hydrogels; mechanical properties; modeling; Monte Carlo simulation; network inhomogeneity; Phantom model; structure-property relations
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [21274020, 21074022, 21304019]
- Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [Y4110115]
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) [124225006]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [26820300] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In this study, controlled amount of dangling ends is introduced to the two series of poly(ethylene glycol)-based hydrogel networks with three and four crosslinking functionality by using click chemistry. The structure of the gels with regulated defect percentage is confirmed by comparing the results of low-field NMR characterization and Monte Carlo simulation. The mechanical properties of these gels were characterized by tensile stress-strain behaviors of the gels, and the results are analyzed by Gent model and Mooney-Rivlin model. The shear modulus of the swollen gels is found to be dependent on the functionality of the network, and decreases with the defect percentage. Furthermore, the value of shear modulus well obeys the Phantom model for all the gels with varied percentage of the defects. The maximum extension ratio, obtained from the fitting of Gent model, is also found to be dependent on the functionality of the network, and does not change with the defect percentage, except at very high defect percentage. The value of the maximum extension ratio is between that predicted from Phantom model and the Affine model. This indicates that at the large deformation, the fluctuation of the crosslinking points is suppressed for some extend but still exists. Polymer volume fractions at various defect percentages obtained from prediction of Flory-Rehner model are found to be in well agreement with the swelling experiment. All these results indicate that click chemistry is a powerful method to regulate the network structure and mechanical properties of the gels. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available