Researchers have developed a jelly-like material that can withstand the equivalent of an elephant standing on it, and completely recover to its original shape, even though it\u2019s 80% water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soft-yet-strong material, developed by a team at the University of Cambridge, looks and feels like a squishy jelly, but acts like an ultra-hard, shatterproof glass when compressed, despite its high water content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The non-water portion of the material is a network of polymers held together by reversible on\/off interactions that control the material\u2019s mechanical properties. This is the first time that such significant resistance to compression has been incorporated into a soft material, writes the University of Cambridge in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u2018super jelly\u2019 could be used for a wide range of potential applications, including soft robotics, bioelectronics or even as a cartilage replacement for biomedical use. The\u00a0results\u00a0are reported in the journal\u00a0Nature Materials<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way materials behave \u2013 whether they\u2019re soft or firm, brittle or strong \u2013 is dependent upon their molecular structure. Stretchy, rubber-like hydrogels have lots of interesting properties that make them a popular subject of research \u2013 such as their toughness and self-healing capabilities \u2013 but making hydrogels that can withstand being compressed without getting crushed is a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn order to make materials with the mechanical properties we want, we use crosslinkers, where two molecules are joined through a chemical bond,\u201d said\u00a0Dr Zehuan Huang\u00a0from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the study\u2019s first author. \u201cWe use reversible crosslinkers to make soft and stretchy hydrogels, but making a hard and compressible hydrogel is difficult and designing a material with these properties is completely counterintuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working in the lab of\u00a0Professor Oren A. Scherman, who led the research, the team used barrel-shaped molecules called cucurbiturils to make a hydrogel that can withstand compression. The cucurbituril is the crosslinking molecule that holds two guest molecules in its cavity \u2013 like a molecular handcuff. The researchers designed guest molecules that prefer to stay inside the cavity for longer than normal, which keeps the polymer network tightly linked, allowing for it to withstand compression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt 80% water content, you\u2019d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn\u2019t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces,\u201d said Scherman, Director of the University\u2019s Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis<\/a>. \u201cThe properties of the hydrogel are seemingly at odds with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way the hydrogel can withstand compression was surprising, it wasn\u2019t like anything we\u2019ve seen in hydrogels,\u201d said co-author\u00a0Dr Jade McCune, also from the Department of Chemistry. \u201cWe also found that the compressive strength could be easily controlled through simply changing the chemical structure of the guest molecule inside the handcuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make their glass-like hydrogels, the team chose specific guest molecules for the handcuff. Altering the molecular structure of guest molecules within the handcuff allowed the dynamics of the material to \u2018slow down\u2019 considerably, with the mechanical performance of the final hydrogel ranging from rubber-like to glass-like states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople have spent years making rubber-like hydrogels, but that\u2019s just half of the picture,\u201d said Scherman. \u201cWe\u2019ve revisited traditional polymer physics and created a new class of materials that span the whole range of material properties from rubber-like to glass-like, completing the full picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers used the material to make a hydrogel pressure sensor for real-time monitoring of human motions, including standing, walking and jumping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that glass-like hydrogels have been made. We\u2019re not just writing something new into the textbooks, which is really exciting, but we\u2019re opening a new chapter in the area of high-performance soft materials,\u201d said Huang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers from the Scherman lab are currently working to further develop these glass-like materials towards biomedical and bioelectronic applications in collaboration with experts from engineering and materials science. The research was funded in part by the Leverhulme Trust and a Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Fellowship. Oren Scherman is a Fellow of Jesus College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also interesting: <\/strong><\/em>Snitches get glue: fixing tissue tears with hydrogel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2084,"featured_media":320801,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[27331,60859,32505,46284,5865],"location":[55977],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-320796","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-chemistry","tag-hydrogel","tag-materials","tag-university-of-cambridge","tag-water","location-united-kingdom"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/wRV4GA4f-hydrogel-gc0fe52f3a_1920-1.jpg","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/mauro-mereu\/","display_name":"Mauro Mereu"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 26, 2021","modified":"Updated on November 26, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 26, 2021 11:15 am","modified":"Updated on November 26, 2021 11:15 am"},"featured_img_caption":"\u00a9 Pixabay","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["chemistry<\/a>","Hydrogel<\/a>","materials<\/a>","University of Cambridge<\/a>","water<\/a>"],"unlinked":["chemistry<\/span>","Hydrogel<\/span>","materials<\/span>","University of Cambridge<\/span>","water<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":["United Kingdom<\/a>"],"unlinked":["United Kingdom<\/span>"],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/320796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320796"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=320796"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=320796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}An hydrogel that can withstand compression<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A new class of materials <\/h3>\n\n\n\n