Bicontinuous vitrimer heterogels with wide-span switchable stiffness-gated iontronic coordination.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38457508.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adl2737 and PMC identifier 10923496.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Currently, it remains challenging to balance intrinsic stiffness with programmability in most vitrimers. Simultaneously, coordinating materials with gel-like iontronic properties for intrinsic ion transmission while maintaining vitrimer programmable features remains underexplored. Here, we introduce a phase-engineering strategy to fabricate bicontinuous vitrimer heterogel (VHG) materials. Such VHGs exhibited high mechanical strength, with an elastic modulus of up to 116 MPa, a high strain performance exceeding 1000%, and a switchable stiffness ratio surpassing 5 × 10<sup>3</sup>. Moreover, highly programmable reprocessing and shape memory morphing were realized owing to the ion liquid-enhanced VHG network reconfiguration. Derived from the ion transmission pathway in the ILgel, which responded to the wide-span switchable mechanics, the VHG iontronics had a unique bidirectional stiffness-gated piezoresistivity, coordinating both positive and negative piezoresistive properties. Our findings indicate that the VHG system can act as a foundational material in various promising applications, including smart sensors, soft machines, and bioelectronics.