Hydrogels that exhibit properties such as ultra-elongation, self-recovery, and self-healing have applications in sensors and many other fields. With these properties and applications in mind, we hypothesised that we could develop a strain-sensing hydrogel based on acrylic acid, stearyl methacrylate, cationic guar gum, and hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide, without any covalent crosslinker. The hydrogels are instead held together by physical, non-covalent interactions such as ionic interactions, hydrogen bonding, and the hydrophobic effect, as suggested by spectroscopy and swelling experiments. The hydrogels exhibit many useful properties, such as: excellent stretching—up to 4267%—and almost complete reversion to their original state at a large strain of 500%, even after 20 successive cycles; temperature-dependent self-healing and self-recovery; and strain-sensitive conductivity that is attributable to the directional migration of ions. Because of these outstanding features, such as notch-insensitivity and the ability to withstand knotting under high strain, our hydrogels will be useful as flexible sensors.

表现出诸如超伸长，自我恢复和自我修复等特性的水凝胶已在传感器和许多其他领域中得到应用。考虑到这些特性和应用，我们假设可以开发一种基于丙烯酸，甲基丙烯酸硬脂酯，阳离子瓜尔胶和十六烷基三甲基溴化铵的应变感应水凝胶，而无需任何共价交联剂。相反，水凝胶通过物理的非共价相互作用（例如离子相互作用，氢键和疏水作用）结合在一起，这是光谱学和溶胀实验所表明的。水凝胶具有许多有用的性能，例如：出色的拉伸性能（高达4267％），即使在连续20个循环后，在500％的大应变下也几乎完全恢复了其原始状态。温度相关的自我修复和自我恢复；应变敏感的电导率归因于离子的定向迁移。由于这些出色的特性，例如，不刻痕和在高应变下承受打结的能力，我们的水凝胶将用作柔性传感器。