A skin-mimetic MXene-loaded silk-textile composite anisotropic hydrogel for programmable complex, powerful and fast light-responsive actuations
Xingyu Cao,
Kaihang Zhang,
Tianle Wang,
Ye Sun,
Lin Chen,
Shuyi Peng,
Chao Ma,
Lang Yang,
Yingguang Xu,
Kaipeng Li,
Chunxin Ma,
Qijie Liu,
Zhenzhong Liu,
Xuxu Yang
Affiliations
Xingyu Cao
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Kaihang Zhang
Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Tianle Wang
College of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Zhejiang Agriculture & Forestry University, Linan 311300, China
Ye Sun
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Lin Chen
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Shuyi Peng
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Chao Ma
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Lang Yang
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Yingguang Xu
Key Laboratory of Quality Safe Evaluation and Research of Degradable Material for State Market Regulation, Products Quality Supervision and Testing Institute of Hainan Province, Haikou 570203, China
Kaipeng Li
Key Laboratory of Quality Safe Evaluation and Research of Degradable Material for State Market Regulation, Products Quality Supervision and Testing Institute of Hainan Province, Haikou 570203, China
Chunxin Ma
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China; Key Laboratory of Quality Safe Evaluation and Research of Degradable Material for State Market Regulation, Products Quality Supervision and Testing Institute of Hainan Province, Haikou 570203, China; Taizhou Key Laboratory of Medical Devices and Advanced Materials, Research Institute of Zhejiang University-Taizhou, Taizhou 318000, China; Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China.
Qijie Liu
Taizhou Key Laboratory of Medical Devices and Advanced Materials, Research Institute of Zhejiang University-Taizhou, Taizhou 318000, China
Zhenzhong Liu
Taizhou Key Laboratory of Medical Devices and Advanced Materials, Research Institute of Zhejiang University-Taizhou, Taizhou 318000, China
Xuxu Yang
Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China; Corresponding author.
Stimuli-responsive actuating hydrogels, with “soft and wet” state, are most important intelligent materials, which have been widely applied in more and more fields. However, the natural isotropic structure and high water-content of hydrogels leads to relatively simple actuating mode and weak mechanical performance respectively, which severely limit further applications of actuating hydrogels. To solve these problems, this study has developed a new actuating hydrogel with skin-mimetic anisotropic structure. Based on supramolecular interaction, monolayer MXene nanosheets can be loaded on the surface of silk-textile that can be embedded in the N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) precursor solution to obtain as-prepared skin-mimetic anisotropic hydrogel (SMAH) with MXene-loaded silk-textile/poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) composite hydrogel layer and the pure PNIPAM hydrogel layer. First of all, the MXene-loaded silk-textile layer of the SMAH (just like the epidermis layer of the skin) not only can provide high strength for powerful actuating force, but also can be embedded into the PNIPAM layer (just like the dermis layer of the skin) to obtain anisotropic structure for various programmable complex actuation. Furthermore, the SMAH can achieve remotely-controlled near-infrared light (NIR)-responsive fast actuation owing to the high-efficiency of photothermal-conversion caused by the MXene-loaded silk-textile. As a result, this SMAH has been designed for several intelligent biomimetic devices with programmable complex, powerful (it can lift up ≥ 60 mass times of itself) and fast (71o/s of average bending speed) actuations under remotely-controlled NIR-irradiation, including biomimetic “claw”, “snake” and even “octopus”. This study provides a skin-like anisotropic intelligent actuating hydrogel for biomimetic deformations and movements, which also will inspire the new research of other smart materials and devices.
