Control nucleation for strong and tough crystalline hydrogels with high water content

Hydrogels, provided that they integrate strength and toughness at desired high content of water, promise in load-bearing tissues such as articular cartilage, ligaments, tendons. Many developed strategies impart hydrogels with some mechanical properties akin to natural tissues, but compromise water content. Herein, a strategy deprotonation-complexation-reprotonation is proposed to prepare polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels with water content as high as ~80% and favorable mechanical properties, including tensile strength of 7.4 MPa, elongation of around 1350%, and fracture toughness of 12.4 kJ m