Liquid metal biomimetics: a chemical perspective

The remarkable functional diversity and consequent environmental adaptability of living organisms are deeply rooted in the fact that, over evolutionary time, chemical composition, structure, energy processing, and information flow have become intensively intertwined across multiple levels of organization. Liquid metals (LMs) provide a distinctive biomimetic platform because their fluid metallic core is intrinsically linked to a chemically active, dynamically regenerated oxide interface and a responsive surrounding environment. Such unique combinations enable LM systems to emulate biological matter, metabolism, and information processing through alloy compositional chemistry, interfacial redox reactions, coordination chemistry, ion transport, and electrocapillary effects. This review presents a chemical framework on general liquid metal biomimetics which covers the main four categories of matter, energy, information and motion together. We first interpret matter biomimetics through summarizing recent progress from the level of elemental composition and molecular bond activation to protein-, cell-, and organ-like structures. Then LM-based energy biomimetics are profiled, including directional energy transport, reversible electrochemical processes and multi-energy conversion. Furthermore, LM-enabled information biomimetics are outlined such as chemical sensing, signal transmission, memory, and logic computation. Finally, we discuss how these chemical and biomimetic principles can be extended to cross-habitat locomotion in aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial environments. By emphasizing interfacial chemistry as the driving force of LM biomimetics, this work provides a perspective for designing adaptive, life-like soft systems with integrated matter, energy, and information functions.