Fracture, fatigue, and friction of polymers in which entanglements greatly outnumber cross-links

Longer and stronger; stiff but not brittle Hydrogels are highly water-swollen, cross-linked polymers. synthesized acrylamide gels in which dense entanglements could be achieved by using unusually low amounts of water, cross-linker, and initiator during the synthesis.

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• 1 Although they can be highly deformed, they tend to be weak, and methods to strengthen or toughen them tend to reduce stretchability.
• 2 Two papers now report strategies to create tough but deformable hydrogels (see the Perspective by Bosnjak and Silberstein).
• 3 introduced a toughening mechanism by storing releasable extra chain length in the stiff part of a double-network hydrogel.

This work deepens our understanding of the fundamental laws governing the universe, from subatomic particles to cosmic structures.

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