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Gels
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Self-Healing Hydrogels
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Self-Healing Hydrogels

A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This special issue belongs to the section "Gel Chemistry and Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 September 2023) | Viewed by 5502

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Qiongyao Peng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada
Interests: mechanical properties; self-healing; hydrogels; flexible electronics
Prof. Dr. Wenling Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
Interests: soft intelligent polymers; soft self-healing robots

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a research or review article to this Special Issue on “Self-Healing Hydrogels” in the journal Gels.

Hydrogels are three-dimensional (3D) cross-linked porous polymer networks containing high water content and have been widely used in various biomedical, electrical, and environmental engineering applications. Self-healing generally refers to a material’s capability to spontaneously heal or mend fractures and defects, restoring their structures and functionalities after inflicted damage. Self-healing hydrogels have attracted growing attention over the past decade due to their biomimetic structure, biocompatibility, as well as enhanced lifespan and reliability. Different from conventional hydrogels that are cross-linked by permanent covalent bonds, self-healing hydrogels are generally constructed by introducing reversible physical molecular interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonding, electrostatic forces, hydrophobic interactions, metal-ligand coordination, host-guest interactions, etc.) or dynamic covalent bonds (e.g., Schiff base or imines, boronate complexations, hydrazones, disulfide bonds) as crosslinks. The reversible and dynamic breakage and reconfiguration of these molecular interactions/bonds enable the hydrogels to reform networks and restore structures after damage. Besides self-healing property, the introduction of various reversible molecular interactions can also endow the hydrogels with diverse functionalities such as injectability, stimuli responsiveness and strain-stiffening property to better satisfy the increasing demands of advanced and multifunctional modern materials.

In this Special Issue, we welcome the submission of manuscripts that deal with the rational design of self-healing hydrogels through different approaches, including but not limited to physical crosslinking, dynamical covalent crosslinking, or cooperation of physical and dynamical covalent crosslinking. And their related applications in various fields such as controlled release, drug delivery, tissue engineering, flexible electronics, and so on. Review articles that provide up-to-date progress of the fields are also encouraged.

Dr. Qiongyao Peng
Prof. Dr. Wenling Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • self-healing
  • hydrogel
  • reversible physical molecular interaction
  • physical crosslinking
  • reversible dynamic covalent bond
  • functional materials

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 8309 KiB  
Article
Study of Thixotropic Characteristics of a Kerosene Gel Propellant by Bayesian Optimization
by Hao Zhou, Cai Chen, Feng Feng, Changsheng Zhou, Wenling Zhang and Wei-Tao Wu
Gels 2023, 9(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels9010015 - 26 Dec 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1928
Abstract
The rheological behavior of gel propellants is crucial for their practical applications, especially in the rocket engine and ramjet fields. The thixotropic characteristics of gel propellants are an important component of their rheological properties and have a notable impact on their flow and [...] Read more.
The rheological behavior of gel propellants is crucial for their practical applications, especially in the rocket engine and ramjet fields. The thixotropic characteristics of gel propellants are an important component of their rheological properties and have a notable impact on their flow and injection process. However, most gel propellants contain rich, dynamic cross-linked network structures, which impart complex non-Newtonian fluid properties, and it is difficult to establish a unified mathematical model. In view of this, this study addresses the thixotropy of a prepared RP-3 kerosene gel and determines the mathematical model and model parameters describing its thixotropy. Experiments show that the kerosene gel exhibits shear-thinning properties as well as thixotropy. To describe the microstructural changes in the gel, three thixotropic constitutive models are introduced to analyze the rheological data, and the constitutive equation parameters are optimized. The three models are all structural dynamic models, which can be used to describe microstructural changes within the material. In addition, the fitting of the constitutive equation is a multiparameter optimization problem, and an appropriate optimization method must be used for parameter fitting. Therefore, the Bayesian optimization method combined with Gaussian process regression and the upper confidence bound (UCB) acquisition function is used in the multiparameter fitting of the constitutive models. Both experiments and numerical results show that the thixotropic model, which introduces a pre-factor with shear strain and assumes that the breakdown of the gel structure is related to energy dissipation rather than the shear rate, has a better fitting effect and prediction ability with regard to the gel. Combined with transient experiments at different shear rates, the model parameters of the constitutive law can be determined quickly by applying the Bayesian optimization method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Self-Healing Hydrogels)
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17 pages, 4450 KiB  
Article
Highly Stretchable, Transparent and Adhesive Ionogel Based on Chitosan-Poly(acrylic acid) Double Networks for Flexible Strain Sensors
by Yuan Zhu, Xuemei Li, Zhenjie Zhao, Yongri Liang, Limin Wang and Yingdan Liu
Gels 2022, 8(12), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels8120797 - 5 Dec 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3013
Abstract
A stretchable double-network (DN) ionogel composed of a physically crosslinked network of chitosan (CS) and a chemically crosslinked network of polyacrylic acid (PAA) was prepared in an ionic liquid ([EMIM][OAc]) using a one-step polymerization method. In this ionogel (CS/PAA), the CS and the [...] Read more.
A stretchable double-network (DN) ionogel composed of a physically crosslinked network of chitosan (CS) and a chemically crosslinked network of polyacrylic acid (PAA) was prepared in an ionic liquid ([EMIM][OAc]) using a one-step polymerization method. In this ionogel (CS/PAA), the CS and the PAA polymer chains served as backbones, which constructed an interpenetrating DN structure via numerous hydrogen bonds formed through the hydroxyl, amino and carboxyl groups on the polymer chains. The DN structure improves the mechanical properties of the ionogel. Therefore, the CS/PAA DN ionogel exhibited outstanding mechanical performance in many ways: tensile strength up to 2.04 MPa, strain range up to 1046% and the value of toughness up to 8.52 MJ/m3. The ionogel also showed good self-recovery performance, fatigue resistance, ability to work in a broad temperature range (−20~80 °C) and adhesion properties. As a flexible sensor, the CS/PAA DN ionogel showed high strain sensitivity (gauge factor = 6.235). It can sensitively detect human motion (such as joint-bending, vocal fold vibration, walking gait and other human body motions), revealing the practical application potential of flexible electronic devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Self-Healing Hydrogels)
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