Chem. Comm, 2016, 52(54), 8365 - 8368.

Liqi Si, Xiaowen Zheng, Jun Nie, Ruixue Yin, Yujie Hua and Xiaoqun Zhu*

Tough hydrogels are prepared from two monomers via photopolymerization of hydroxyethyl acrylate and sol–gel of methyltrimethoxysilane. Constitution and water content could be tuned easily because of the good water solubility of both monomers and two non-interfering polymerization processes. The hydrogels exhibit excellent integrated performance with toughness, high resilience, fast self-recovery, and self-healing