journal article·2025-09Open access

Biomimetic All‐Weather Strong, Tough, and Fatigue‐Resistant Composite Organohydrogels for Electronic Artificial Ligaments

Gehong Su, Xiaotian Zhang, Yaping Zhou, Zhishuo Chen, Jin Feng, Yue Xu, Yongpeng Zhao, Chun Wu, Zhiwei Lu, Mengmeng Sun, Tao Zhou, Hanbing Rao

Small· Volume 21· Issue 38

Abstract

Abstract Gel materials have tremendous potential for application in future electronics and robotics due to their intriguing merits, like flexibility and biocompatibility. Nonetheless, conventional hydrogels' limited mechanical property and functionality have remarkably impeded their practical applications. Drawing inspirations from hierarchical anisotropic composite structure of natural hard biomaterials, this study proposes a freezing‐casting assistant salting‐out and solvent displacement with polyol strategy for the fabrication of composite organohydrogels with all‐weather strong, tough, and fatigue‐resistant mechanical features and functionalities (environmental stability and conductivity). By combining the hierarchical anisotropic fibrous microstructure with high crystallinity and abundant polymer–solvent interactions, the resulting organohydrogel displays exceptional stiffness (8.74 MPa), strength (21.20 MPa), stretchability (1556%), toughness (184.26 MJ m −3 ), fracture energy (768.3 kJ m −2 ), and fatigue threshold (7.86 kJ m −2 ). More importantly, the mechanical performances and conductivity of the gel are well‐maintained at both cold and hot conditions, thus guaranteeing the application feasibility of the gel in extreme conditions. These intriguing merits enable the gel to exhibit superior potential in cutting‐edge load‐bearing applications, like electronic artificial ligaments. Therefore, this study presents a model approach that extends the fundamental design principles of natural biomaterials to engineer composite gels with synergistic mechanical and functional enhancements.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials · Hydrogels: synthesis, properties, applications · Electrospun Nanofibers in Biomedical Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

College of Science Sichuan Agricultural University Xin Kang Road, Yucheng District Ya'an 625014 China

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymer Materials Polymer Research Institute Sichuan University Chengdu 610065 China

College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Wuhan University Wuhan Hubei 430072 China

College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Sichuan Agricultural University Ya'an 625014 China

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China

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