Dear Hamza Ahmad, you Can crosslink the polymer to enhance mechanical properties to a certain extent, but not sufficiently enough. Copolymerization with special monomers, such as the one in the following paper to focus on supramokecular interactions as physical crosslinks. My Regards

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2014.07.022

We can do by two methods

1) Making Bimodal polymers by crosslinking with small and long chains.

2) Making composite by addition of micro / nano particles.

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Hello Hamza Ahmad ,

I join the previous comments. There are two additional possibilities to increase the mechanical strength of your PDMAA gel, that come to my mind.

1) You can increase the mechanical strength (after the synthesis of your gel) by swelling your gel with the monomer + crosslinker and repeat the crosslinking reaction. This results in an interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) with an increased strength.

2) You can 'crosslink' by using bivalent ions. In you case, this might be done by a dicarboxylic acid. The acid protonates the amine groups and the dicarboxylate can form additional 'crosslinks' then.

I suggest copolymerization of DMAM and AA and crosslinking with MBAM if you need a hydrogel with increased mechanical properties. If you want to improve the mechanical properties of homopolymer PDMAM, I suggest applying the design of nanocomposite materials using nano-silica, and titanium dioxide (in situ prepared).