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Facile fabrication and characterization of high-performance Borax-PVA hydrogel

  • Original Paper: Characterization methods of sol-gel and hybrid materials
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Abstract

Borax-PVA hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties are prepared by simple physical mixing of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA, thickener) and borax (cross-linking agent) at room temperature. The resulting hydrogel is a three-dimensional structure composed of boric ester bonds as physical crosslinking points. Thus, the spatial structure, swelling properties, viscoelastic properties, tensile properties, and self-healing properties of hydrogels with different ratios of borax and PVA are studied. XRD confirmed that the hydrogels have similar structures near 2θ values of 10 and 20. The microstructure of the hydrogel is confirmed by SEM and TEM. With an increase of borax mass fraction, the pore structure and morphology of hydrogel are more ordered, with substantial quantities of water immobilized within their three-dimensional structure. The viscoelastic properties and tensile properties showed that when the mass fraction of borax is 5%, the storage modulus and compressive stress of the hydrogel are the highest, reaching 100 Pa and 5.6 kPa, respectively. In addition, through physical and chemical stimulation (heating and varying pH, respectively), the hydrogels also showed reversible gel–sol conversion characteristics, indicating that the boric ester bonds have self-healing properties.

Highlights

  • The Borax-PVA hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties are prepared by simple physical mixing of polyvinyl alcohol and borax at room temperature.

  • The Borax-PVA hydrogel is a three-dimensional structure composed of boric ester bonds as physical crosslinking points.

  • The Borax-PVA hydrogels showed reversible gel–sol conversion characteristics, indicating that the boric ester bonds have self-healing properties.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful for the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22008148), Key R&D Plan of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (No. 2020BFG03003), International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of Shaanxi (No. 2020KW-025), Science and Technology Plan Project of Xi’an City (No. 2020KJRC0004), Technology Innovation Leading Program of Shaanxi (No. 2020CGXNG-016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Auxiliary Chemistry & Technology for Chemical Industry; Ministry of Education, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi’an, 710021, China

    Chen Wang, Zhifeng Shen, Xiaojuan Lai, Xiaowu Yang & Kang Zhang

  2. Chemical Corporation of Changqing, Xi’an, 710021, China

    Pengfei Hu

  3. Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering Technology, Sinopec Shengli Oilfield, Dongying, 257001, China

    Tao Wang & Xing Zhang

  4. Ningxia Branch of China National Geological Exploration Center of Building Materials Industry, Ningxia, 750000, China

    Lidong Liang

  5. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi’an, 710021, China

    Jianguang Bai

  6. Xi’an Key Laboratory of Textile Chemical Engineering Auxiliaries; School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Xi’an Polytechnic University, Xi’an, 710000, China

    Liewei Qiu

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  1. Chen Wang
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Correspondence to Chen Wang or Kang Zhang.

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Wang, C., Shen, Z., Hu, P. et al. Facile fabrication and characterization of high-performance Borax-PVA hydrogel. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 101, 103–113 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05584-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05584-0

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