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Combining 3D Printing with Electrospinning for Rapid Response and Enhanced Designability of Hydrogel Actuators
T. Chen, H. Bakhshi, L. Liu, J. Ji, S. Agarwal
Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 1800514

Porous structures have emerged as a breakthrough of shape-morphing hydro-gels to achieve a rapid response. However, these porous actuators generally suffer from a lack of complexity and diversity in obtained 3D shapes. Herein, a simple yet versatile strategy is developed to generate shape-morphing hydrogels with both fast deformation and enhanced designability in 3D shapes by combining two promising technologies: electrospinning and 3D printing. Elaborate patterns are printed on mesostructured stimuli-responsive electrospun membranes, modulating in-plane and interlayer internal stresses induced by swelling/shrinkage mismatch, and thus guiding morphing behav-iors of electrospun membranes to adapt to changes of the environment. With this strategy, a series of fast deformed hydrogel actuators are constructed with various distinctive responsive behaviors, including reversible/irrevers-ible formations of 3D structures, folding of 3D tubes, and formations of 3D structures with multi low-energy states. It is worth noting that although poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) is chosen as the model system in the present research, our strategy is applicable to other stimuli-responsive hydrogels, which enriches designs of rapid deformed hydrogel actuators.