Magnetic Polyacrylamide/Fe3O4 Nanocomposite Hydrogel with High Mechanical Strength

Polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels with very high mechanical strength were prepared using radiation-peroxidized micelles that were formed by surfactant molecules as initiating and crosslinking centers. PAAm/Fe3O4 nanocomposite hydrogels were obtained by introducing Fe3O4 nanoparticles into PAAm hydrogels through an in situ chemical co-precipitation method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations showed that the nanoparticles were homogeneously distributed and the particles were about 30 nm in size. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the obtained nanoparticles were spinel Fe(3)O4(.) The PAAm/Fe3O4 nanocomposite hydrogels showed superparamagnetism. The ferrogels also had good mechanical properties, the elongation at break of some gels could be as high as 1200% and the maximum tensile strength was about 0.10 MPa, and they exhibited very good shape recoverability.