Preparation and performance of high-strength wood-based composite hydrogels with double network structures

Abstract

The wood was used as raw material to obtain the wood skeleton by matrix-removal. And the high-strength wood-based composite hydrogels with PVA/PAM double network structure were constructed by in-situ polymerization. The change rules of macro/micro functional morphological characteristics, mechanical properties, optical properties and chemical composition of the wood-based composite hydrogels were systematically investigated by adjusting the mass ratio of PVA and PAM in the hydrogel system. The results show that introducing a small amount of PVA into the PAM/wood skeleton composite hydrogels and constructing a double network structure can effectively enhanced the mechanical properties of the wood-based composite hydrogels. As a result, the wood-based composite hydrogels show tensile properties with a maximum tensile strength and fracture elongation of 16.47 MPa and 11.61%. Furthermore, the wood-based composite hydrogel is used as a flexible substrate with a conductivity of 1.8 S/m to assemble and build sensor components. The results indicate that the flexible sensor exhibits stable and repeatable relative current signal changes under a variety of deformations.

Keywords

• wood
• polyvinyl alcohol
• polyacrylamide
• hydrogel
• mechanical property
• flexible wearable sensor