Self-healing and easy-to-shape mineralized hydrogels for iontronics

Abstract

Hydrogel-based multifunctional materials have attracted much attention. In this work, novel mineralized hydrogels were fabricated through physically cross-linked polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and CaCO₃. The mineralized hydrogels were prepared by simply mixing CaCl₂, Na₂CO₃, and PVP in aqueous solutions. The CO₃²⁻ induced the aggregation of the PVP chains and the CaCO₃ particles in situ generated in the aqueous solution worked as fillers to strengthen the hydrogels. Based on this method, other kinds of mineralized hydrogels were prepared by replacing the Ca²⁺ with different metal ions. The mineralized hydrogels displayed shapeable, self-healing and thixotropic properties. Moreover, the mineralized hydrogel-based sensor showed good and stable sensitivity to compressive pressure, and could be used to monitor human actions. This work presents a facile method for preparing mineralized hydrogels, which are promising for various applications due to their outstanding properties.