Biopolymeric Gels: Advancements in Sustainable Multifunctional Materials

With the growing emphasis on building a global sustainable community, biopolymeric gels have emerged as a promising platform for environmentally friendly and sustainable applications, garnering significant research attention. Compared to conventional synthetic gels, biopolymeric gels offer numerous advantages, including abundant and renewable raw materials, energy-efficient and eco-friendly fabrication processes, tunable physicochemical properties, and superior biocompatibility and biodegradability. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in multifunctional biopolymeric gels. It begins by introducing various biopolymeric building blocks and their intrinsic properties across multiple scales. Subsequently, the synthetic strategies for biopolymeric gels are thoroughly discussed, emphasizing versatile gelation strategies, multiple approaches for fabricating gels, diverse processing approaches to achieve tailorable gels with desired functionalities. The sustainable applications of biopolymeric gels are systematically explored, focusing on their roles in energy storage, environmental remediation of water management, thermal management, and bioelectronics. Finally, the review concludes with an outlook on the challenges and opportunities for advancing biopolymeric gels as key materials in the pursuit of sustainability.