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

Koki Sano (), Naoki Igarashi, Yasuo Ebina, Takayoshi Sasaki, Takaaki Hikima, Takuzo Aida () and Yasuhiro Ishida ()
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Koki Sano: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science
Naoki Igarashi: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science
Yasuo Ebina: National Institute for Materials Science, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics
Takayoshi Sasaki: National Institute for Materials Science, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics
Takaaki Hikima: RIKEN SPring-8 Center
Takuzo Aida: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science
Yasuhiro Ishida: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

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

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19905-4

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