Properties and Structure of Hydrogel-Related Materials (3rd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

We are grateful to all authors, reviewers, and readers for their responses to the second edition of my Special Issue, entitled “Properties and Structure of Hydrogel-Related Materials”. You can access the edition via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/gels/special_issues/5E9LTJZ2O3.

It is now well-recognized that the birth of synthetic hydrogels in 1960, thanks to O. Wichterle and D. Lim, marked the beginning of a new era in the science and technology of hydrogels. Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymer networks that become swollen in water or other fluids, integrating solid (elastic) and liquid (viscous) properties. In the past three decades, hydrogels have also been extensively explored and widely used in diverse interdisciplinary science and engineering applications such as fracture mechanics, mechanochemistry, wound dressings, scaffolds for tissue engineering, contact lenses, absorbents in waste management, coating, drug delivery, water treatment, sensors, flexible electronics, and soft robots. However, most conventional hydrogels, which are composed of a single network (SN), usually suffer from mechanical weakness, significantly limiting their extensive uses for engineering applications requiring mechanical properties. Over the last few decades, intensive efforts have led to synthesizing hydrogels that possess extreme mechanical properties, such as double-network (DN) gels, slide-ring (SR) gels, tetra-PEG gels, nanocomposite (NC) gels, hybrid gels, polyampholytes gels, phase-separated gels, and freeze-casting gels. DN gel is a landmark tough material with intrinsic tough mechanical properties due to its two unique and contrasting network structures. The theory of sacrificial bonding and energy dissipation adequately demonstrates the universality of the tough gel and can be easily understood by a general audience. Although many aspects of the bridging relationship between the structure and properties of gel have been clarified so far, many phenomena and underlying mechanisms are still left unsolved. We believe it is time to revisit mechanical properties and the network of gels to mark a possible new era in the science of gels. We look forward to submitting new results on the properties and structure of gels. The submission of both theoretical and experimental studies is welcome.

Dr. Wei Cui
Guest Editor

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• gels and networks
• tough gel
• gel rheology
• gel adhesion
• photonic crystal hydrogel sensor

• Properties and Structure of Hydrogel-Related Materials in Gels (6 articles)
• Properties and Structure of Hydrogel-Related Materials (2nd Edition) in Gels (6 articles)