A Novel Janus Thermosensitive Hydrogel with Bidirectional Shape Changing Property

A facile strategy has been successfully established to fabricate janus nanocomposite (NC) hydrogel with anisotropic swelling behavior, which results in inhomogeneous shape change. This janus hydrogel was fabricated via two-step free radical polymerization by using clay as crosslinker and N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) as monomer nut with different molar ratio in two layers, respectively. The free radical polymerization of PNIPAM at the interface provided a homogeneous conjunctive manner to tolerate the inhomogeneous tension of both layer after swelling. Moreover, the novel janus hydrogel could be well designed with bidirectional shape changing under temperature variation. Therefore, diverse thermoresponsive architectures could be built to provide a great potential in the field of cargo transportation, soft robots and actuators.