Fig. 2: Antisolvent-induce phase separation for controlled microphase separation in wet-spun nascent PANa-PAM hydrogel fibers.
a The effect of antisolvent on fiber structure and properties. (i) Optical microscope images showing composite hydrogel filamentation in IPA and EtOH. (ii) Stress-strain curves of PANa-PAM fibers (fPAM = 1/2, pH 4.1) precipitated from different antisolvents. (iii) An AFM image for the PANa-PAM fiber processed from MeOH. (iv) 1D SAXS profiles of PANa-PAM fibers precipitated from IPA and MeOH. b The effect of polymer composition on fiber structure and properties. (i) Photos of PANa-PAM hydrogel dopes (pH = 4.1) with different fPAM and (ii) stress-strain curves of the resulting fibers. (iii) An AFM image of the PANa-PAM fiber with fPAM = 1/4. (iv) 1D SAXS profiles of PANa-PAM fibers with different fPAM. c The effect of hydrogel dope pH on fiber structure and properties. (i) Photos of PANa-PAM hydrogel dopes (fPAM = 1/4) at different pH and (ii) stress-strain curves of the resulting fibers. (iii) An AFM image of the PANa-PAM fiber processed from hydrogel dope of pH 4.6. (iv) 1D SAXS profiles of PANa-PAM fibers processed from hydrogel dopes of different pH. d PeakForce quantitative nanomechanical AFM analysis for the PANa-PAM fiber with an optimized microphase separation structure in terms of nanoscale morphology, modulus, and adhesion force. e TEM image, HAADF image and elemental maps of the optimized PANa-PAM fiber. f Mechanical properties tunability of PANa-PAM fibers based on controlled microphase separation. The dots of different colors represent the measured data points. Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation from n = 5 independent samples.
