Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Sun, Shengtong
• Mao, Li-Bo
• Lei, Zhouyue
• Yu, Shu-Hong
• Cölfen, Helmut

Titel

Hydrogels from Amorphous Calcium Carbonate and Polyacrylic Acid: Bio-Inspired Materials for "Mineral Plastics"

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), 2016-09, Vol.55 (39), p.11765-11769

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Germany: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Given increasing environmental issues due to the large usage of non‐biodegradable plastics based on petroleum, new plastic materials, which are economic, environmentally friendly, and recyclable are in high demand. One feasible strategy is the bio‐inspired synthesis of mineral‐based hybrid materials. Herein we report a facile route for an amorphous CaCO3 (ACC)‐based hydrogel consisting of very small ACC nanoparticles physically cross‐linked by poly(acrylic acid). The hydrogel is shapeable, stretchable, and self‐healable. Upon drying, the hydrogel forms free‐standing, rigid, and transparent objects with remarkable mechanical performance. By swelling in water, the material can completely recover the initial hydrogel state. As a matrix, thermochromism can also be easily introduced. The present hybrid hydrogel may represent a new class of plastic materials, the “mineral plastics”. Shapeable, stretchable, recyclable, (thermochromic) amorphous calcium carbonate‐based hybrid supramolecular hydrogels were synthesized, which can reversibly form macroscopic rigid transparent films upon drying. This plastic material may potentially replace conventional plastics in a move towards solving environmental issues.