Creating lightweight engineering materials
combining high strength and great toughness remains a
significant challenge. Despite possessing-enhanced strength
and stiffness, bioinspired/polymeric materials usually suffer
from clearly reduced extensibility and toughness when
compared to corresponding bulk polymer materials. Herein,
inspired by tiny amounts of various inorganic impurities for
mechanical improvement in natural materials, we present a
versatile and effective metal ion (Mn+
)-based synergic crosslinking (MSC) strategy incorporating eight types of metal
ions into material bulks that can drastically enhance the
tensile strength (?24.1?70.8%), toughness (?18.6?
110.1%), modulus (?21.6?66.7%), and hardness (?6.4?176.5%) of multiple types of pristine materials (from hydrophilic
to hydrophobic and from unary to binary). More importantly, we also explore the primarily elastic?plastic deformation
mechanism and brittle fracture behavior (indentation strain of >5%) of the synergic cross-linked graphene oxide (Syn-GO)
paper by means of in situ nanoindentation SEM. The MSC strategy for mechanically enhanced integration can be readily
attributed to the formation of the complicated metals-based cross-linking/complex networks in the interfaces and
intermolecules between functional groups of materials and various metal ions that give rise to efficient energy dissipation.
This work suggests a promising MSC strategy for designing advanced materials with outstanding mechanical properties by
adding low amounts (<1.0 wt %) of synergic metal ions serving as synergic ion-bonding cross-linkers