{"id":208073,"date":"2025-03-07T12:18:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/entangled-polymers-and-nanosheets-create-skin-like-self-healing-hydrogel"},"modified":"2025-03-07T12:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:18:27","slug":"entangled-polymers-and-nanosheets-create-skin-like-self-healing-hydrogel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/entangled-polymers-and-nanosheets-create-skin-like-self-healing-hydrogel","title":{"rendered":"Entangled polymers and nanosheets create skin-like, self-healing hydrogel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/entangled-polymers-and-nanosheets-create-skin-like-self-healing-hydrogel2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We all encounter gels in daily life\u2014from the soft, sticky substances you put in your hair to the jelly-like components in various foodstuffs. While human skin shares gel-like characteristics, it has unique qualities that are very hard to replicate. It combines high stiffness with flexibility, and it has remarkable self-healing capabilities, often healing completely within 24 hours of an injury.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, artificial gels have either managed to replicate this high stiffness or natural skin\u2019s self-healing properties, but not both. Now, a team of researchers from Aalto University and the University of Bayreuth are the first to develop a hydrogel with a unique structure that overcomes earlier limitations, opening the door to applications such as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/drug+delivery\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">drug delivery<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/wound+healing\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">wound healing<\/a>, soft robotics sensors and artificial skin.<\/p>\n<p>In the study, the researchers added exceptionally large and ultra-thin specific clay nanosheets to hydrogels, which are typically soft and squishy. The result is a highly ordered structure with densely entangled polymers between nanosheets, not only improving the mechanical properties of the hydrogel but also allowing the material to self-heal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all encounter gels in daily life\u2014from the soft, sticky substances you put in your hair to the jelly-like components in various foodstuffs. While human skin shares gel-like characteristics, it has unique qualities that are very hard to replicate. It combines high stiffness with flexibility, and it has remarkable self-healing capabilities, often healing completely within [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1499,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-cyborgs","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}