Chemo-responsive, self-oscillating gels that undergo biomimetic communication
Name
Chem Soc Reviews 42 17 2013 7257-77.pdf
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1.87 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
201a7a744002108bee73769f34831587
Author(s)
Kuksenok, Olga
Dayal, Pratyush
Bhattacharya, Amitabh
Yashin, Victor V.
Deb, Debabrata
Chen, Irene C.
Van Vliet, Krystyn J.
Balazs, Anna C.
Date Issued
February 2013
Journal
Chemical Society Reviews
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry, The
Citation
Kuksenok, Olga, Pratyush Dayal, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Victor V. Yashin, Debabrata Deb, Irene C. Chen, Krystyn J. Van Vliet, and Anna C. Balazs. “Chemo-Responsive, Self-Oscillating Gels That Undergo Biomimetic Communication.” Chemical Society Reviews 42, no. 17 (2013): 7257.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Species ranging from single-cell organisms to social insects can undergo auto-chemotaxis, where the entities move towards a chemo-attractant that they themselves emit. Polymer gels undergoing the self-oscillating Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction exhibit autonomous, periodic pulsations, which produce chemical species collectively referred to as the activator. The diffusion of this activator into the surrounding solution affects the dynamic behavior of neighboring BZ gels and hence, the BZ gels not only emit, but also respond to self-generated chemical gradients. This review describes recent experimental and computational studies that reveal how this biomimetic behavior effectively allows neighboring BZ gels to undergo cooperative, self-propelled motion. These distinctive properties of the BZ gels provide a route for creating reconfigurable materials that autonomously communicate with neighboring units and thereby actively participate in constructing the desired structures.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1039/c3cs35497k
