Strong, Ultrafast, Reprogrammable Hydrogel Actuators with Muscle-Mimetic Aligned Fibrous Structures
Article
Article Title | Strong, Ultrafast, Reprogrammable Hydrogel Actuators with Muscle-Mimetic Aligned Fibrous Structures |
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ERA Journal ID | 1423 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | Jiang, Zhen (Author), Seraji, Seyed Mohsen (Author), Tan, Xiao (Author), Zhang, Xinxing (Author), Dinh, Toan (Author), Mollazade, Mahdie (Author), Rowan, Alan E (Author), Whittaker, Andrew K (Author), Song, Pingan (Author) and Wang, Hao (Author) |
Journal Title | Chemistry of Materials |
Journal Citation | 33 (19), pp. 7818-7828 |
Number of Pages | 11 |
Year | 2021 |
Place of Publication | United States |
ISSN | 0897-4756 |
1520-5002 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c02312 |
Web Address (URL) | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c02312 |
Abstract | Hydrogel actuators displaying programmable shape transformations promise to be core components in future biomedical and soft robotic devices. However, current hydrogel actuators have shortcomings, including poor mechanical properties, slow response, and lack of shape reprogrammability, which limit their practical applications. Existing molecular designs offer limited efficiency in synergistically addressing these issues in a single hydrogel system. Herein, we propose a strategy to develop hydrogel actuators with muscle-mimetic aligned microfibrillar morphology, combining thermoinduced microphase separation and mechanical alignment. The key to our design is the introduction of metal–phenolic complexes, which not only induce irreversible sol–gel transition via the concentrated coordinate ions above lower critical solution temperature (LCST) but also fix the alignment of bundle network due to dynamic network rearrangement. Our design concept is observed to simultaneously achieve excellent mechanical properties (tensile strength ≈ 1.27 MPa, toughness ≈ 2.0 MJ m–3) and ultrafast actuation (40.1% thermal contraction as short as 1 s), which is a long-lasting challenge in the field. In addition, the dynamic hydrogels can be reprogrammed into spiral, helical, and biomimetic actuators. This work opens new opportunities to realize real-world applications for smart hydrogels as soft machines by fundamentally breaking the current property limit. |
Keywords | Biomedical robotics; Core components; Fibrous structures; Hydrogel actuators; Mimetics; Reprogrammable; Robotic devices; Shape transformation; Soft robotics; Ultra-fast |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 340302. Macromolecular materials |
401605. Functional materials | |
401609. Polymers and plastics | |
Public Notes | Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions. |
Byline Affiliations | Centre for Future Materials |
University of Queensland | |
Sichuan University, China | |
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering | |
Institution of Origin | University of Southern Queensland |
Funding source | Australian Research Council (ARC) Grant ID FT190100188 |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q6vvx/strong-ultrafast-reprogrammable-hydrogel-actuators-with-muscle-mimetic-aligned-fibrous-structures
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