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In modern applications of heterogeneous liquid-phase nanocatalysis, the catalysts (e.g., metal nanoparticles) need to be typically affixed to a colloidal carrier system for stability and easy handling. "Passive carriers" (e.g., simple…
Hydrogels are widespread soft materials, which can serve a wide range of applications. The control over the viscoelastic properties of the gel is of paramount importance. Ongoing environmental issues have raised the consumer's concern…
Hydrogel adhesion that can be easily modulated in magnitude, space, and time is desirable in many emerging applications ranging from tissue engineering, and soft robotics, to wearable devices. In synthetic materials, these complex adhesion…
Low-molecular weight (LMW) hydrogels are gaining interest over macromolecular gels due to their reversible, dynamic and stimuli-responsive nature. They are potentially interesting functional materials for advanced applications such as…
Stimulus-responsive DNA-hydrogels with swelling capabilities are a promising class of materials for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and biosensing. However, translation of these systems to microscale applications requires…
Implantable hydrogels should ideally possess mechanical properties matched to the surrounding tissues to enable adequate mechanical function while regeneration occurs. This can be challenging, especially when degradable systems with high…
Porous and flexible actuating materials are important in the development of smart systems. We report here a facile method to prepare scalable, flexible actuating porous membranes based on a poly(ionic liquid)-modified tissue paper. The…
Tissue-like materials are required in many robotic systems to improve human-machine interactions. However, the mechanical properties of living tissues are difficult to replicate. Synthetic materials are not usually capable of simultaneously…
Biological hydrogels have been increasingly sought after as e.g. wound dressings or scaffolds for regenerative medicine, due to their inherent biofunctionality in biological environments. Especially in moist wound healing, the ideal…
At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
While most of the studies on molecular machines have been performed in solution, interfacing these supramolecular systems with solid-state nanostructures and materials is very important in view of their utilization in sensing components…
Physical properties of composite materials can be pre-engineered by controlling their structure and composition at the mesoscale. Yet, approaches for achieving this are limited and rarely scalable. We introduce a new breed of self-assembled…
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…
Shape-programmable soft materials that exhibit integrated multifunctional shape manipulations, including reprogrammable, untethered, fast, and reversible shape transformation and locking, are highly desirable for a plethora of applications,…
Stimuli-responsive lyogels are considered to be smart materials due to their capability of undergoing significant macroscopic changes in response to external triggers. Due to their versatile and unique properties, smart lyogels exhibit…
At the cutting edge of materials science, matter is designed to self-organize into structures that perform a wide range of functions. The past two decades have witnessed major innovations in the versatility of building blocks, ranging from…
Hydrogels are soft materials engineered to suit a multitude of applications that exploit their tunable mechanochemical properties. Dynamic hydrogels employing noncovalent, physically crosslinked networks dominated by either enthalpic or…
The design of intelligent materials often draws parallels with the complex adaptive behaviors of biological organisms, where robust functionality stems from sophisticated hierarchical organization and emergent long-distance coordination…
Nature has exhibited numerous soft-interactive botanical or zoological systems with self-adaptivenss or reconfigurable shape, however, artificial micro/nano materials of same merit are formidable due to material/structural limitations,…
The concept of creating all-mechanical soft microrobotic systems has great potential to address outstanding challenges in biomedical applications, and introduce more sustainable and multifunctional products. To this end, magnetic fields and…