Kneading-Dough-Inspired Quickly Dispersing of Hydrophobic Particles into Aqueous Solutions for Designing Functional Hydrogels
Jun Huang,
Youqi Wang,
Ping Liu,
Jinzhi Li,
Min Song,
Jiuyu Cui,
Luxing Wei,
Yonggan Yan,
Jing Liu
Affiliations
Jun Huang
State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 102206, China
Youqi Wang
State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 102206, China
Ping Liu
State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 102206, China
Jinzhi Li
Oil and Gas Development Management Center of Shengli Oilfield Company, Sinopec, Dongying 257000, China
Min Song
Oil and Gas Development Management Center of Shengli Oilfield Company, Sinopec, Dongying 257000, China
Jiuyu Cui
Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Luxing Wei
Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Yonggan Yan
Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture of Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Jing Liu
Xinxing Cathay International (Beijing) Institute of Materials Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing 100078, China
Hydrogels containing hydrophobic materials have attracted great attention for their potential applications in drug delivery and biosensors. This work presents a kneading-dough-inspired method for dispersing hydrophobic particles (HPs) into water. The kneading process can quickly mix HPs with polyethyleneimine (PEI) polymer solution to form “dough”, which facilitates the formation of stable suspensions in aqueous solutions. Combining with photo or thermal curing processes, one type of HPs incorporated PEI-polyacrylamide (PEI/PAM) composite hydrogel exhibiting good self-healing ability, tunable mechanical property is synthesized. The incorporating of HPs into the gel network results in the decrease in the swelling ratio, as well as the enhancement of the compressive modulus by more than five times. Moreover, the stable mechanism of polyethyleneimine-modified particles has been investigated using surface force apparatus, where the pure repulsion during approaching contributes to the good stability of the suspension. The stabilization time of the suspension is dependent on the molecular weight of PEI: the higher the molecular weight is, the better the stability of the suspension will be. Overall, this work demonstrates a useful strategy to introduce HPs into functional hydrogel networks. Future research can be focused on understanding the strengthening mechanism of HPs in the gel networks.
