Reinforcement of hydrogel by addition of fiber‐like nanofiller

Abstract

Reinforcement of acrylamide (AAm) gel was achieved by addition of imogolite (IG), rigid tube‐like nanofiller. The obtained gel exhibits high mechanical strength depending on cross‐linking density of AAm. Especially, when cross‐linker is 0.5 mol% to AAm, the compressive fracture stress of gel is 17 MPa which is approximately 60 times higher than conventional AAm gels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.