A mechanically adaptive hydrogel with a reconfigurable network consisting entirely of inorganic nanosheets and water

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19905-4
• Publication Date: 2020-11-27T11:03:24Z
• Authors: Koki Sano; Naoki Igarashi; Yasuo Ebina; Takayoshi Sasaki; Takaaki Hikima; Takuzo Aida; Yasuhiro Ishida
• Keywords: Soft materials

Although various biomimetic soft materials that display structural hierarchies and stimuli responsiveness have been developed from organic materials, the creation of their counterparts consisting entirely inorganic presents an attractive challenge, as properties such generally differ those living organisms. Here, we a hydrogel nanosheets (14 wt%) water (86 undergoes thermally induced reversible abrupt changes in its internal structure mechanical elasticity (23-fold). At room temperature, electrostatically repel one another self-assemble into long-periodic lamellar architecture with mutually restricted mobility, forming physical hydrogel. Upon heating above 55 °C, electrostatic repulsion is overcome by competing van der Waals attraction, rearrange interconnected 3D network By doping gel photothermal-conversion agent, gel-to-gel transition becomes operable spatiotemporally on photoirradiation.