To improve the features of alginate-based hydrogels in physiological conditions, Ca-crosslinked semi-interpenetrated hydrogels formed by poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonic acid and alginate (PEDOT/Alg) were subjected to a treatment with glyoxal to form a dual ionic/covalent network. The covalent network density was systematically varied by considering different glyoxalization times (). The content of Ca was significantly higher for the untreated hydrogel than for the glyoxalized ones, while the properties of the hydrogels were found to largely depend on . The porosity and swelling capacity decreased with increasing , while the stiffness and electrical conductance retention capacity increased with . The potentiodynamic response of the hydrogels notably depended on the amount of conformational restraints introduced by the glyoxal, which is a very short crosslinker. Thus, the re-accommodation of the polymer chains during the cyclic potential scans became more difficult with increasing number of covalent crosslinks. This information was used to improve the performance of untreated PEDOT/Alg as electrochemical sensor of hydrogen peroxide by simply applying a of 5 min. Overall, the control of the properties of glyoxalized hydrogels through is very advantageous and can be used as an on-demand strategy to improve the performance of such materials depending on the application.

中文翻译：

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电响应海藻酸盐水凝胶的乙二醛交联：对性能的影响

为了改善海藻酸盐基水凝胶在生理条件下的特性，通过乙二醛处理由聚(3,4-乙撑二氧噻吩):聚苯乙烯磺酸和海藻酸盐(PEDOT/Alg)形成的Ca交联半互穿水凝胶，形成双离子/共价网络。通过考虑不同的乙二醛化时间（）来系统地改变共价网络密度。未经处理的水凝胶的 Ca 含量明显高于乙二醛化的水凝胶，而水凝胶的性能很大程度上取决于 。孔隙率和膨胀能力随着增加而降低，而刚度和电导保留能力随着增加而增加。水凝胶的动电位响应主要取决于乙二醛（一种非常短的交联剂）引入的构象限制的量。因此，随着共价交联数量的增加，循环电位扫描期间聚合物链的重新调节变得更加困难。该信息用于通过简单地应用 5 分钟来提高未经处理的 PEDOT/Alg 作为过氧化氢电化学传感器的性能。总体而言，通过控制乙二醛化水凝胶的性能是非常有利的，并且可以用作按需策略来根据应用来改善此类材料的性能。