Good day to our readers,

I discovered an interesting phenomenon about color changing hydrogels. In a previous edition, I described chameleon-like ability of certain hydrogels to change colors. It was engineering by exposing the hydrogel to chemical or light stimuli.

This phenomenon of hydrogels had a name - mechanochromic hydrogels. I found a paper discussing this and summarized it below.

In Brief

• Highly precise and sensitive hydrogel changing colors when under pressure

Research Updates

Extraordinary sensitive mechanochromic hydrogels for visually detecting ultrasmall pressure

• The researchers fabricated supersensitive mechanochromic photonic crystal (MPC) hydrogels with extreme sensitivity, fast responsiveness, large wavelength tuning range, and excellent reversibility.

• A mechanochromic hydrogel is a type of soft material that displays colorimetric changes upon mechanical stimuli. This means that the color of the hydrogel changes in response to an applied external force.

• Mechanochromic photonic crystal (MPC) hydrogels synthesized using SiO2/water-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA). These MPC hydrogels were fabricated by swelling non-closely packed structures combined with a unique interface etching-induced swelling mechanism.

• Unique compositions, structures, and swelling mechanisms are the keys to precisely regulating the surface-to-surface distance and mechanochromic properties of these MPC hydrogels.

• These sensitive MPCs can monitor the ultrasmall jump pressure of frogs dynamically, instantly, and visually.

• An etching-induced swelling mechanism is crucial to fabrication and these features.

Image Of The Day

Share This Newsletter

Thank you for reading this edition of the Hydrogels newsletter!

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, share the word with your friends by asking them to visit this link: