Robust hydrogel of regenerated cellulose by chemical crosslinking coupled with polyacrylamide network

ABSTRACT Regenerated cellulose/polyacrylamide (RC/PAAm) double network (DN) hydrogels are composed of cellulose crosslinked by epichlorohydrin (ECH) and chemical‐crosslinked PAAm. The prepared RC/PAAm DN hydrogels present enhanced strength, good shape recovery property, excellent energy dissipation properties, decreased equilibrium water content, and low equilibrium swelling ratio (SR). The compressive strength and modulus of RC/PAAm hydrogel are about 4.3 and 11.5 times compared to that of RC hydrogel, respectively. Intriguingly, the chemical crosslinking between ECH and cellulose chains could increase the distance between cellulose chains. Consequently, the increasing molar ratio of ECH to glucose leads to larger SRs and decreased mechanical strength of the hydrogels. Additionally, higher PAAm contents lead to more densely crosslinked networks, and thus decreasing the SRs and improving the mechanical strength of the hydrogels. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136 , 47811.