via University of Cambridge
Researchers have developed a jelly-like material that can withstand the equivalent of an elephant standing on it, and completely recover to its original shape, even though it’s 80% water.
At 80% water content, you’d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn’t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces
Oren Scherman
The soft-yet-strong material, developed by a team at the University of Cambridge, looks and feels like a squishy jelly, but acts like an ultra-hard, shatterproof glass when compressed, despite its high water content.
The non-water portion of the material is a network of polymers held together by reversible on/off interactions that control the material’s mechanical properties. This is the first time that such significant resistance to compression has been incorporated into a soft material.
The ‘super jelly’ could be used for a wide range of potential applications, including soft robotics, bioelectronics or even as a cartilage replacement for biomedical use. The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials.
The way materials behave – whether they’re soft or firm, brittle or strong – is dependent upon their molecular structure. Stretchy, rubber-like hydrogels have lots of interesting properties that make them a popular subject of research – such as their toughness and self-healing capabilities – but making hydrogels that can withstand being compressed without getting crushed is a challenge.
“In order to make materials with the mechanical properties we want, we use crosslinkers, where two molecules are joined through a chemical bond,” said Dr Zehuan Huang from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the study’s first author. “We use reversible crosslinkers to make soft and stretchy hydrogels, but making a hard and compressible hydrogel is difficult and designing a material with these properties is completely counterintuitive.”
Working in the lab of Professor Oren A. Scherman, who led the research, the team used barrel-shaped molecules called cucurbiturils to make a hydrogel that can withstand compression. The cucurbituril is the crosslinking molecule that holds two guest molecules in its cavity – like a molecular handcuff. The researchers designed guest molecules that prefer to stay inside the cavity for longer than normal, which keeps the polymer network tightly linked, allowing for it to withstand compression.
“At 80% water content, you’d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn’t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces,” said Scherman, Director of the University’s Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis. “The properties of the hydrogel are seemingly at odds with each other.”
“The way the hydrogel can withstand compression was surprising, it wasn’t like anything we’ve seen in hydrogels,” said co-author Dr Jade McCune, also from the Department of Chemistry. “We also found that the compressive strength could be easily controlled through simply changing the chemical structure of the guest molecule inside the handcuff.”
To make their glass-like hydrogels, the team chose specific guest molecules for the handcuff. Altering the molecular structure of guest molecules within the handcuff allowed the dynamics of the material to ‘slow down’ considerably, with the mechanical performance of the final hydrogel ranging from rubber-like to glass-like states.
“People have spent years making rubber-like hydrogels, but that’s just half of the picture,” said Scherman. “We’ve revisited traditional polymer physics and created a new class of materials that span the whole range of material properties from rubber-like to glass-like, completing the full picture.”
The researchers used the material to make a hydrogel pressure sensor for real-time monitoring of human motions, including standing, walking and jumping.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that glass-like hydrogels have been made. We’re not just writing something new into the textbooks, which is really exciting, but we’re opening a new chapter in the area of high-performance soft materials,” said Huang.
Original Article: ‘Super jelly’ can survive being run over by a car
More from: University of Cambridge
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Super jelly
- Britney Spears' 'Lip Gloss Manicure' Is Sparking a New Trend at the Salon—Here's How to Get It
Britney Spears recently showed off a new manicure, appropriately dubbed the 'lip gloss manicure', on her Instagram. Her square-shaped nails were painted with an ultra-shiny, light peachy pink polish ...
- 12 Creative Ways To Improve Your PB&J
The humble peanut butter and jelly sandwich is an easy-to-make lunchtime staple, but it can also be a canvas for creative ingredient swaps and prep methods.
- Jelly Roll's Wife Bunnie Xo Connects with Late Ex Tony Through Medium Tyler Henry: 'He Actually Always Loved Me'
"I was actually pregnant with his child. I lost his baby, but we were young," detailed Bunnie Xo during a conversation with medium Tyler Henry on her 'Dumb Blonde' podcast.
- Jelly Roll Celebrates Running 5K After Not Being Able to Walk 1 Mile in January
Jelly Roll is feeling good after running his first 5K after having some trouble at the start of his training. “I couldn’t walk a mile when I started trying to do this back in January,” Jelly ...
- Bunnie Xo Clarifies Her 'Joke' Comment About 'Hall Pass' in Jelly Roll Marriage: 'It's Super Innocent'
Related: Bunnie Xo Reveals Her 'Hall Pass' in Jelly Roll Marriage — and He's Another Musician Taylor Hill/WireImage Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo in Austin in April 2024 ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Super jelly
[google_news title=”” keyword=”super jelly” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Hydrogel
- Repurposed beer yeast encapsulated in hydrogels may offer a cost-effective way to remove lead from water
Every year, beer breweries generate and discard thousands of tons of surplus yeast. Researchers from MIT and Georgia Tech have now come up with a way to repurpose that yeast to absorb lead from ...
- AmacaThera doses First In Human Study to Evaluate, AMT-143, for Non-opioid Treatment of Post-operative Pain
AmacaThera Inc, a clinical stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of advanced sustained release hydrogel formulations, has dosed its first human subject with AMT-143, the ...
- Instylla HES Hypervascular Tumor Pivotal Study Completes Enrollment
Instylla, Inc., a developer of liquid embolics for peripheral vascular embolotherapy, announced the completion of patient enrollmen ...
- Peptide-based hydrogel shows promise for a wide range of tissue and organ repair
Combining biomedical finesse and nature-inspired engineering, a uOttawa-led team of scientists has created a jelly-like material that shows great potential for on-the-spot repair to a remarkable range ...
- Protein-based hydrogel breaks down alcohol in the body
(Nanowerk News) Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a protein-based hydrogel that breaks down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract without harming the body. In the future, people who take the ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Hydrogel
[google_news title=”” keyword=”hydrogel” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]