Tuncaboylu, Deniz C.Argun, AslihanAlgi, Melek PamukOkay, Oğuz2020-10-292020-10-292013-11-01Tuncaboylu D. C. , Argun A., Algi M. P. , Okay O., -Autonomic self-healing in covalently crosslinked hydrogels containing hydrophobic domains-, POLYMER, cilt.54, ss.6381-6388, 2013http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12645/26626Self-healing hydrogels suffer from low mechanical strength due to their reversible breakable bonds which may limit their use in any stress-bearing applications. This deficiency may be improved by creating a hybrid network composed of a combination of a physical network formed via reversible crosslinks and a covalent network. Here, we prepared a series of hybrid hydrogels by the micellar copolymerization of acrylamide with 2 mol % stearyl methacrylate (C18) as a physical crosslinker and various amounts of N,N--methylenebis(acrylamide) (BAAm) as a chemical crosslinker. Rheological measurements show that the dynamic reversible crosslinks consisting of hydrophobic associations surrounded by surfactant micelles are also effective within the covalent network of the hybrid hydrogels. A significant enhancement in the compressive mechanical properties of the hybrid gels was observed with increasing BAAm content. The existence of an autonomous self-healing process was also demonstrated in hybrid gels formed at low chemical crosslinker ratios. The largest self-healing efficiency in hybrids was observed in terms of the recovered elastic modulus, which was about 80% of the original value. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.ArticleWOS:0003261408000148488625272010.1016/j.polymer.2013.09.051