Antifreezing
and highly proton-conductive hydrogels show promising
applications in flexible electrochemical devices owing to their inherent
stretchability and safety. In this study, we chose an ethylene glycol/water
(EG/H2O) binary mixture as the solvent, sulfonated chitosan
(CS-SO3H) as the proton-conducting component, and the blend
of CS-SO3H and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as a gelator to
prepare double-network hydrogels, CS-SO3H@PVA-X (X represents the mass ratio of CS-SO3H and PVA with a value of 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5), which are characterized
by different techniques, including microanalysis, IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectra, TG, PXRD, and so on. CS-SO3H@PVA-X hydrogels exhibit excellent tensile
strength, toughness, and a freezing-tolerant feature. Importantly,
CS-SO3H@PVA-1.5 hydrogel displays not only high proton
conduction in a wide range of temperatures from −35 to 70 °C,
with proton conductivities of 7.2 × 10–4 S
cm–1 at −35 °C and 4.56 × 10–2 S cm–1 at 70 °C and ambient
humidity, but also exceptional mechanical performance, with a tensile
strength of 3.11 MPa and an elongation at break of 423%, indicative
of a potential application in electrochemical devices relying on proton
transport and operating at extreme conditions. It is also discovered
for the first time that the double-network micelles are entangled
together to form the spiral crimped texture in hydrogels CS-SO3H@PVA-X (X = 1.0 and 1.5).
Kaolinite possesses a structure with asymmetrically layered 1:1 dioctahedral aluminum silicate, and such structural property provides a useful platform for creating new cost-efficient functional materials, which requires noncentrosymmetric crystal packing....
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.