Nanoconfined entanglement-enhanced phase separation enables tough and contractile ionogel fibers
Zhao Xu, Te Xu, Jiangqi Feng, Pan Guo, Xin Yao, Haili Qin, Huai-Ping Cong · 2025
Read Nanoconfined entanglement-enhanced phase separation enables tough and contractile ionogel fibers by Zhao Xu, Te Xu, Jiangqi Feng, Pan Guo, Xin Yao, Haili Qin, Huai-Ping Cong (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12848051.txt.
Description
Seven authors spin artificial fibers that mimic spider silk in this 2025 paper. Spider silk pairs great strength with fast shrinking response to water, a mix soft robotics covets, but copying both traits in one material has resisted design efforts.
Their ionogel fibers are built by trapping a tangled, bottlebrush shaped mixture at nanoscale, so phases separate in a way that boosts toughness. The fibers waste energy across scales when stretched, yet snap back with springy integrity even when wet. The result pairs record toughness with rapid supercontraction on wetting, shrinking by seventy-six percent with strong force. The energy density beats muscle-like benchmarks, pointing toward smart bio-inspired actuators.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Zhao Xu, Te Xu, Jiangqi Feng, Pan Guo, Xin Yao, Haili Qin, Huai-Ping Cong |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 58 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |