Design of Self Oscillating Ionic Gels

Self-oscillating polymer gels that intrinsically utilize Belousov Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction have emerged as an interesting class of smart materials due to their biomimetic characteristics. Here, we synthesize polymer gels using imidazolium-based ionic liquid as a precursor and immobilize the catalyst of the BZ reaction onto the backbone of the gel. Further, we replace the protonating agent in the BZ reaction with Ethyl Ammonium Bisulfate (EABS)—a protic ionic liquid. In essence, we demonstrate that through careful replacement of BZ reagents with their ionic liquid counterparts, the chemical oscillations in the BZ system can be manifested into mechanical swelling and deswelling of the polymer gel, just like the conventional BZ gels. Our approach, however, offers significant advantage over the BZ gels synthesized through the conventional route. Specifically, due to the presence of ionic bonds the dynamics of the mechanical oscillations in our self-oscillating ionic gels can be controlled via electric and magnetic fields. Thus, our approach opens up new avenues for designing multi-functional biomimetic systems that can be controlled by application of variety of external stimuli.