Regulation of the chemomechanical behaviors of self-oscillating gels and the related application

Self-oscillating gels are a novel branch of functional soft materials that exhibit periodic deformation driven by certain oscillating chemical reaction. They are capable of generating rhythmic swelling-shrinking behaviors without any external stimuli and continuously converting chemical energy into mechanical energy. Therefore, self-oscillating gels have great potential application in the field of engineering and biomedicine. Chemomechanically coupling behaviors of self-oscillating gels involve a series of complicated nonlinear processes and are not only significantly affected by mechanical factors (i.e., mechanical boundary conditions, external force) and the chemical factors (i.e., concentration of reactants, type of catalyst), but also controlled by other physical factors including geometric shape of gels, light intensity, temperature, etc. So far, a number of groundbreaking researches on the application of self-oscillating gels have been well investigated in the aspects of signal delivery system, self-assembly system, mass transportation, micro actuators and novel sensors. Based on the broad investigation of related literatures and years of our researches, this paper systematically reviewed the regulation of the chemomechanical behaviors of self-oscillating gels and their latest application, which may contribute to the further study of self-oscillating gels.