Hydrogels can be stretched to several tens or even hundreds of times their original lengths, making them suitable for various applications. They have shown great potential for use in sensors and wearable devices. Although many attempts have been made to develop highly stretchable hydrogels, combining high stretchability and excellent damping remains a challenge. This study reports a method that significantly improved the stretchability and damping properties of hydrogels. The innovation is the replacement of traditional short-chain crosslinkers, such as N,N-methylenebis(acrylamide) (MBA), with long-chain crosslinkers. With increasing chain lengths, the spaces in the networks became larger, which reduced the interactions between the molecular chains in the network. As a result, the molecular chains of the network could slide when stretched, which greatly increased the mechanical elongation and enabled damping by the hydrogel (up to 85%). The maximum elongation reached 21800%, with a toughness of 11.32 MJ m⁻³. To the best of our knowledge, this elongation is superior to those in all previous reports. Our results provide a new approach for the development of highly stretchable and damping hydrogels.

水凝胶可以拉伸至原始长度的数十倍甚至数百倍，使其适用于各种应用。它们在传感器和可穿戴设备中显示出巨大的应用潜力。尽管已经进行了许多尝试来开发高拉伸性水凝胶，但将高拉伸性和出色的阻尼结合起来仍然是一个挑战。这项研究报告了一种显着改善水凝胶的拉伸性和阻尼性能的方法。该创新是用长链交联剂替代传统的短链交联剂，例如N,N-亚甲基双（丙烯酰胺）（MBA）。随着链长度的增加，网络中的空间变得更大，这减少了网络中分子链之间的相互作用。结果，网络的分子链在拉伸时可以滑动，这大大增加了机械伸长率并实现了水凝胶的阻尼（高达85%）。最大伸长率达到21800%，韧性为11.32 MJ m ^-3。据我们所知，这种伸长率优于之前所有报告中的伸长率。我们的结果为开发高拉伸性和阻尼水凝胶提供了一种新方法。