dual polymer material tagged posts

Dynamic Hydrogel used to make ‘Soft Robot’ Components and LEGO-like building blocks

LEGO-like hydrogel building blocks patterned with tiny fluid channels can be assembled into complex microfluidic devices and then sealed tightly together.
Credit: Wong Lab / Brown University

Using a new type of dual polymer material capable of responding dynamically to its environment, Brown University researchers have developed a set of modular hydrogel components that could be useful in a variety of “soft robotic” and biomedical applications.

The components, which are patterned by a 3D printer, are capable of bending, twisting or sticking together in response to treatment with certain chemicals. For a paper published in the journal Polymer Chemistry, the researchers demonstrated a soft gripper capable of actuating on demand to pick up small objects...

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