Hydrophobically associated hydrogels based on acrylamide and anionic surface active monomer with high mechanical strength

In this work, a physically cross-linked hydrogel (HA gels) with high mechanical strength is synthesized via micellar copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and an anionic surface active monomer (surfmer), sodium 9 or 10-acrylamidostearic acid (NaAAS) without any adscititious surfactant or chemical cross-linkers. SEM and DLS characterizations indicate that the surfmer formed multi-micellar aggregates with 80–90 nm diameters above its critical micelle concentration, and serve as a crosslinked-center to endow the obtained hydrogel a robust three-dimensional architecture. Compared with the chemically cross-linked hydrogel, HA gels exhibit unusual swelling–deswelling behavior in water and a pulsatile swelling–deswelling behavior is exhibited with alternating pH changes from 5 to 10 because the presence of carboxyl in the surfmer, demonstrating a smart characteristic of the hydrogel. Moreover, the presence of the surfmer greatly improve the mechanical properties of HA gels. A hydrogel containing 20% (mol/mol) surfmer shows a compression strength of 22.50 MPa at a strain of 90% and can be elongated to 13 times its original length. Furthermore, the HA gels show a significant hysteresis recovery after large deformation, underlying a serious energy-dissipation mechanism. This uncommon swelling behavior and mechanical properties of the HA gels result from its special characteristic of cross-linked units. A self-healing ability is expected for this physical hydrogel in future applications in biotechnology.