Most tough hydrogels are reinforced by introducing sacrificial structures that can dissipate input energy. However, because the sacrificial damage cannot rapidly recover, the toughness of these gels drops substantially during consecutive cyclic loadings. We propose a damageless reinforcement strategy for hydrogels using strain-induced crystallization. For slide-ring gels in which polyethylene glycol chains are highly oriented and mutually exposed under large deformation, crystallinity forms and melts with elongation and retraction, resulting both in almost 100% rapid recovery of extension energy and excellent toughness of 6.6 to 22 megajoules per square meter, which is one order of magnitude larger than the toughness of covalently cross-linked homogeneous gels of polyethylene glycol.

大多数坚韧的水凝胶通过引入可以耗散输入能量的牺牲结构来增强。然而，由于牺牲损伤不能迅速恢复，这些凝胶的韧性在连续循环加载期间大幅下降。我们提出了一种使用应变诱导结晶的水凝胶无损伤增强策略。对于聚乙二醇链高度取向且在大变形下相互暴露的滑环凝胶，结晶形成并随着伸长和收缩而熔化，从而导致几乎100%的拉伸能快速恢复和每平方6.6至22兆焦耳的优异韧性米，这比聚乙二醇共价交联的均质凝胶的韧性大一个数量级。