Hydroelastomers: soft, tough, highly swelling composites

Abstract: Inspired by the cellular design of plant tissue, we present a new approach to make versatile, tough, highly water-swelling composites. We embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices. The resulting composites, which we call \emph{hydroelastomers}, show little softening as they swell, and have excellent fracture properties that match those of the best-performing, tough hydrogels. Our composites are straightforward to fabricate, based on commercial materials, and can easily be molded or extruded to form shapes with complex swelling geometries. Furthermore, there is a large design space available for making hydroelastomers, since one can use any hydrogel as the dispersed phase in the composite, including hydrogels with stimuli-responsiveness. These features should make hydroelastomers excellent candidates for use in soft robotics and swelling-based actuation, or as shape-morphing materials, while also being useful as hydrogel replacements in a wide range of other fields.