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Bioinspired Color-Changing Polymeric Hydrogel Actuators/Robots.

Zelin Li1,2, Shuxin Wei1,2, Patrick Théato3,4

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Advanced Marine Materials, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Extreme-environmental Material Surfaces and Interfaces, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Biomimetic soft robots using polymeric hydrogels can change color and shape. This review covers their preparation, performance, and applications in areas like camouflage and encryption.

Keywords:
actuators/robotsbioinspirationcolor changefluorescencepolymeric hydrogelstructural color

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Area of Science:

  • Materials Science
  • Robotics
  • Biomimetics

Background:

  • Natural organisms adapt using color and shape changes.
  • Polymeric hydrogels offer biomimetic properties for soft actuators.
  • Recent advances show potential in camouflage, locomotion, and encryption.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review synergistic color-changing polymeric hydrogel actuators/robots.
  • To classify these materials based on color origination mechanisms.
  • To summarize preparation, performance, and applications.

Main Methods:

  • Classification by color mechanism: pigment, structural, and fluorescence.
  • Summary of preparation strategies for hydrogel actuators.
  • Analysis of multicolor-shifting and 3D shape-morphing capabilities.

Main Results:

  • Detailed overview of pigment, structural, and fluorescence color mechanisms.
  • Compilation of diverse preparation techniques for hydrogel actuators.
  • Demonstrated applications in camouflage, locomotion, and information encryption.

Conclusions:

  • Polymeric hydrogels are key for biomimetic color-changing actuators.
  • Synergistic shape/color hydrogels offer significant application potential.
  • Further research is needed to address current challenges and explore future prospects.