“People have spent years making rubber-like hydrogels, but that’s just half of the picture,” said Scherman. This not only includes the super jelly, but also materials as hard as glass. Published in the Journal Nature Materials, the Cambridge team notes that they can customize the “handcuffed” guest molecule, allowing them to create a whole range of material textures that still contain their indestructible nature. OUTLOOK: BIOMEDICAL AND ROBOTICS APPLICATIONS New bill will give the task force unfettered access to UFO data, reports, and records. “We also found that the compressive strength could be easily controlled through simply changing the chemical structure of the guest molecule inside the handcuff.” Jade McCune, from the University’s Department of Chemistry. “The way the hydrogel can withstand compression was surprising, it wasn’t like anything we’ve seen in hydrogels,” added co-author Dr. “The properties of the hydrogel are seemingly at odds with each other.” “At 80% water content, you’d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn’t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces,” said Professor Oren Scherman, Director of the University’s Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis. Next, the research team introduced a specially designed guest molecule that tends to stay in the handcuffs longer than other molecules, giving the new material the ability to withstand extreme compression without losing its original shape. In this case, the team started with barrel-shaped molecules called cucurbiturils, which are cross linking molecules that can hold a pair of “guest” molecules together like a pair of handcuffs. “We use reversible crosslinkers to make soft and stretchy hydrogels, but making a hard and compressible hydrogel is difficult and designing a material with these properties is completely counterintuitive.” “In order to make materials with the mechanical properties we want, we use crosslinkers, where two molecules are joined through a chemical bond,” said the study’s first author, Dr Zehuan Huang from the University of Cambridge. This dichotomy in material versatility versus durability led a team of researchers to see if they could take advantage of the numerous positive properties of hydrogels, only without the fragility often associated with these materials. “Stretchy, rubber-like hydrogels have lots of interesting properties that make them a popular subject of research – such as their toughness and self-healing capabilities,” the press release announcing the breakthrough material notes, “but making hydrogels that can withstand being compressed without getting crushed is a challenge.” That’s because such materials are typically mostly water, meaning they tend to burst under any notable pressure. Made from 80% water, the material is virtually indestructible, leading to possible biomedical and robotic applications. Researchers have developed a new type of hydrogel called “super jelly” that can withstand the crushing impact of an elephant’s stomp or the weight of a car without losing its original shape.
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