Self-healing behavior of graphene oxide based cross-linked polyacrylamide hydrogels

Abstract

In material science and technology, self-healing hydrogels with superior mechanical performance are of great interest. A self-healing crosslinker can be made using graphene oxide (GO) as a base material. Recently, acrylate functionalized GO was synthesized and incorporated in hydrogels with excellent mechanical strength. The purpose of this study was to create self-healing poly(acrylamide) hydrogels using a GOBC to improve mechanical and self-healing properties. The addition of GOBC to PAM-GOBC hydrogels improves mechanical properties without affecting self-healing efficiency. A PAM-GOBC hydrogel with a modulus of 0.2 MPa showed good self-healing efficiency while a PAM hydrogel with a conventional crosslinker had no self-healing capability. Polymer-GOBC hydrogels' self-healing properties can be modulated by the presence of reversible physical bonds generated from oxygen-containing functional groups on the 2D surface of GO. The findings of this systematic study will aid in the understanding of the self-healing mechanism and will help to improve the self-healing efficiency of hydrogels.