Highly Flexibility, Powder Self-Healing, and Recyclable Natural Polymer Hydrogels

Abstract

Based on the good self-healing ability to repair mechanical damage, self-healing hydrogels have aroused great interest and been extensively applied as functional materials. However, when partial failure of hydrogels caused by breaking or dryness occurs, leading to recycling problems, self-healing hydrogels cannot solve the mentioned defects and have to be abandoned. In this work, a novel recyclable and self-healing natural polymer hydrogel (Chitosan/polymethylacrylic acid-: CMA) was prepared. The CMA hydrogel not only exhibited controlled mechanical properties from 26 kPa to 125 kPa with tensile strain from 1357% to 3012%, but also had good water retaining property, stability and fast self-healing properties in 1 min. More importantly, the CMA hydrogel displayed attractive powder self-healing performance. After drying–powdering treatment, the mentioned abandoned hydrogels could easily rebuild their frame structure to recover their original state and performance in 1 min only by adding a small amount of water, which could significantly prolong their service life. These advantages guarantee the hydrogel can effectively defend against reversible mechanical damage, water loss and partial hydrogel failure, suggesting great potential applications as a recyclable functional hydrogel for biomaterials and electronic materials.