Chinese team creates ‘lifelike’ hydrogel that changes shape for smart devices

Chinese researchers have developed a “lifelike” shape-changing hydrogel they say could provide a platform for next-generation developments, such as flexible tissue engineering scaffolds, brain-computer interfaces and humanlike robots.

Inspired by living organisms, the team created a light-triggered system called STERS, which uses liquid metal particles to generate slow, self-sustaining chemical reactions that allow a hydrogel to change its structure over time.

Capable of growing and changing alongside living tissues, this adaptive system could inspire next-generation biomedical materials and devices. It could also have broad implications in fields such as regenerative medicine and soft robotics, according to the researchers.

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“This novel approach enables programmable, lifelike morphological evolution in hydrogels, spanning microscopic to macroscopic scales, minutes to weeks, and single to multiple transformation cycles,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Matter on September 4.