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Papers
20 resultsShowing papers similar to Soft Actuators and Actuation: Design, Synthesis, and Applications
ClearHydrogels: A Comprehensive Review of Structure, Properties, and Multifaceted Applications
This review provides a systematic overview of hydrogel classification, cross-linking mechanisms, and properties, examining their applications in drug delivery, tissue engineering, soft robotics, and sustainable agriculture, and discussing stimuli-responsive behavior and emerging directions in the field.
Recent Advances on Underwater Soft Robots
This paper describes advances in underwater soft robots made from flexible materials that can adapt to ocean environments. While not directly related to microplastics, these robots have potential applications in ocean monitoring and environmental cleanup. The review covers the materials, movement patterns, power systems, and sensing capabilities that could eventually help address marine plastic pollution.
Water-Content-Dependent Switching of the Bending Behavior of Photoresponsive Hydrogels Composed of Hydrophilic Acrylamide-Based Main Chains and Hydrophobic Azobenzene
This materials study developed hydrogels that respond to both light and water content, with potential applications in soft robotics and drug delivery. Smart hydrogel materials represent an emerging class of polymers whose environmental fate and potential for microplastic generation warrant study.
Tough Hydrogels with Different Toughening Mechanisms and Applications
This review examines advances in engineering tough hydrogels that can withstand significant mechanical stress, mimicking the properties of load-bearing biological tissues like cartilage and muscle. Researchers summarized various toughening strategies including double-network designs and nanocomposite reinforcement. The study highlights the potential of these materials for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, wound healing, and soft robotics.
Fundamentals and Advances in Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogels and Their Applications: A Review
This review covers stimuli-responsive hydrogels, which are smart materials that change shape or behavior in response to environmental triggers. Among their many applications, these materials can remove heavy metals and pollutants from water, and they show promise in biomedical settings like drug delivery and wound healing. While not focused specifically on microplastics, these technologies could be adapted for environmental cleanup of plastic pollution.
Hierarchically Structured Hydrogel Actuator for Microplastic Pollutant Detection and Removal
Researchers developed a smart hydrogel actuator that can both detect and physically remove microplastic compound pollutants from water using light-driven movement. The device integrates hierarchical polymer networks that enable it to sense contamination and autonomously collect microplastic particles. The study demonstrates a novel approach to addressing aquatic microplastic pollution through self-powered soft robotics that combine sensing and remediation in a single material.
Hydrogels Classification According to the Physical or Chemical Interactions and as Stimuli-Sensitive Materials
This review classifies hydrogels based on their internal cross-linking mechanisms and their responsiveness to external stimuli such as pH, temperature, light, and enzymes. Researchers examined both physically cross-linked hydrogels, which form through reversible interactions, and chemically cross-linked hydrogels with permanent covalent bonds. The study highlights diverse biomedical applications including drug delivery, tissue engineering scaffolds, biosensors, and actuators.
Synthetic Polymer-based Hydrogels and Properties
Researchers reviewed the synthesis, properties, and applications of synthetic polymer-based hydrogels, summarizing advances in zwitterionic and hybrid formulations that overcome brittleness and poor toughness to enable uses from drug delivery to neural interfaces and bioelectronic devices.
Recent trends in bioartificial muscle engineering and their applications in cultured meat, biorobotic systems and biohybrid implants
Researchers reviewed the latest advances in engineering laboratory-grown muscle tissue, which has promising applications in cultured meat, soft robots, and medical implants — three fields that have largely worked in isolation despite sharing common challenges. Bringing these communities together could accelerate breakthroughs across all three industries.
Hydrogel-Based Stimuli-Responsive Micromotors for Biomedicine
This review summarized progress in hydrogel-based micromotors that respond to stimuli such as temperature, pH, and magnetic fields for biomedical applications. The study suggests these tiny devices could transport drugs or capture targets in hard-to-reach areas of the body, offering potential for minimally invasive diagnosis and therapy.
Significance of biopolymer-based hydrogels and their applications in agriculture: a review in perspective of synthesis and their degree of swelling for water holding
Researchers reviewed the development and agricultural applications of hydrogels made from natural biopolymers, which are biodegradable alternatives to synthetic plastics. These hydrogels can retain large amounts of water and deliver nutrients or active compounds to soil in a controlled way. The study suggests that biopolymer hydrogels could help improve crop yields while reducing the environmental burden of synthetic plastic materials in agriculture.
3D Bioprinting: Process, Techniques, Biomaterials and Bioinks and its Future Aspects
This paper is not about microplastics — it reviews 3D bioprinting techniques, biomaterials, and bioinks used to fabricate tissue-mimicking constructs for medical applications.
Three-Dimensional Printing of Multifunctional Composites: Fabrication, Applications, and Biodegradability Assessment
This paper is not about microplastics; it is a materials science review of polymer composites used in 3D printing, examining additive types, biodegradation pathways, and the environmental safety of biodegradable biocomposites.
Microlenses arrays: Fabrication, materials, and applications
This review covers fabrication methods, materials, and applications of microlens arrays, examining manufacturing approaches from direct writing to soft lithography and their use in imaging, sensing, and display technologies.
Multi-functional soft-bodied jellyfish-like swimming
Researchers designed a small jellyfish-inspired swimming robot made of magnetic flexible material that can be controlled by an external oscillating magnetic field to perform multiple tasks in water. The robot demonstrates how soft, jellyfish-like designs could be used for underwater object manipulation, and may also help scientists study how real jellyfish move.
Investigation of Soft Matter Nanomechanics by Atomic Force Microscopy and Optical Tweezers: A Comprehensive Review
This review covers how atomic force microscopy and optical tweezers are used to measure the mechanical properties of soft materials like cells, proteins, and gels at the nanoscale. While not directly about microplastics, these tools are increasingly used to study how nano- and microplastic particles interact with cell membranes and biological tissues. Understanding these interactions at the molecular level helps explain how microplastics cause physical damage to cells.
DNA-directed arrangement of soft synthetic compartments and their behavior in vitro and in vivo
Researchers used DNA as a molecular tether to direct the self-assembly of soft synthetic compartments into stable super-assemblies, demonstrating that controlling membrane composition and DNA surface density enabled stable structures suitable for both in vitro and in vivo testing.
3D nanofabricated soft microrobots with super-compliant picoforce springs as onboard sensors and actuators
Researchers developed tiny 3D-printed soft microrobots using an elastic, magnetic material that can sense forces as small as half a piconewton — roughly the weight of a single molecule — enabling the robots to grasp and manipulate individual biological cells with unprecedented precision for biomedical applications.
A Programmable Inchworm-Inspired Soft Robot Powered by a Rotating Magnetic Field
Researchers designed and fabricated an inchworm-inspired soft robot driven by a rotating magnetic field, demonstrating programmable locomotion through flexible structural deformation, with potential applications in miniaturized robotic systems for confined environments.
Multifunctional Application of Biopolymers and Biomaterials
This paper is not about microplastics; it is a broad review of multifunctional applications of biopolymers and biomaterials across medicine, packaging, and engineering.