Abstract
Hydrogels are attracting widespread attention due to their unique mechanical flexibility, which holds great promise for application in various fields. However, the high water-richness of hydrogels make them inevitably freeze at sub-zero temperatures conditions and severely limit the range of applications. Herein, we presented a novel anti-freezing strategy based on betaine/CaCl2 and CNCs as both reinforcing agent and physical cross-linking agent to achieve the simultaneous upgrading of anti-freezing and mechanical properties of hydrogels. Under the synergistic effect of betaine and CaCl2, the GA/PAA-CNC/betaine/CaCl2 hydrogels maintained exceptional fracture toughness (1.5 MPa) and tensile properties (1000%) even at − 30 °C. This work offers a neoteric antifreeze strategy to design self-healing, high intensity and anti-freezing arabic gum hydrogels.
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The research was financial supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51973086), the Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science (Nos. 2019KJA011) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2021MB124).
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WX: Writing-original draft, Data curation; FJ: Writing-review & editing, Methodology; SZ: Writing-review & editing, Methodology; HC: Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing-review & editing; LB: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing-review & editing; WW: Conceptualization; Resources; HY: Writing-review & editing; LY: Methodology, Resources; DW: Project administration, Methodology.
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Xiao, W., Jing, F., Zhang, S. et al. Cellulose nanocrystal based self-healing and anti-freezing arabic gum hydrogels using betaine/CaCl2 anti-freeze strategy. Cellulose 30, 7667–7680 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05321-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05321-6