Abstract
The properties of polymer gels are governed not only by the crosslinked network but also by the solvent. Conventional small-molecule solvents impose trade-offs among environmental adaptability, cost, and biocompatibility. Here, we employ oligomeric polyethylene glycol as a multifunctional solvent for poly (methacrylic acid) (PMAA), converting the otherwise plastic PMAA network into a transparent, dissipative gel. The oligomeric solvent promotes a hierarchical hydrogen-bonding architecture with broadly distributed strengths, coupling elasticity and viscosity, stabilizing the network, and enabling high energy dissipation for acoustic damping and impact resistance. Meanwhile, thermally reversible hydrogen-bond dissociation provides broad endothermic heat absorption, affording thermal buffering. The gels further exhibit high transparency, robust adhesion, and self-healing. Harnessing the gel as an interlayer, we fabricate laminated glass that integrates light transmission, thermal regulation, sound attenuation, and mechanical protection. This oligomer-solvent strategy offers a practical route to multifunctional, energy-efficient, safer building glazing applications in real-world architecture settings.
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The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the Article and its Supplementary Information. All raw data are available from the corresponding author on request. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported mainly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52473238 (W.C.), 52203027 (W.C.), 52573231 (R.R.)), the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2024NSFSC0245 (W.C.), 2025ZNSFSC0340 (R.R.)), the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering (sklpme-2024-01-04 (R.R.)), and the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymer Materials (sklamp2025-2-04 (W.C.)). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support from the Sichuan Province Advanced Building Materials Production-Education Integration Innovation Demonstration Platform.
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R.R. and W.C. conceived and supervised the project and designed the experiments. M.L. performed the majority of the experiments. L.H., X.Y., and X.H. assisting in sample synthesis and M.P. supporting the Molecular Dynamics simulations. M.L., R.R., and W.C. co-wrote and revised the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Li, M., Hu, L., Pi, M. et al. Oligomeric-solvent engineering of hierarchical hydrogen-bonding networks for multifunctional glass interlayers. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70223-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70223-7
