Highly Efficient Switchable Underwater Adhesion in Channeled Hydrogel Networks (Adv. Funct. Mater. 35/2024)

Switchable Underwater Adhesion In article number 2214091, Olli Ikkala, Hang Zhang, and Amanda Eklund report a channeled poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel containing bio-inspired dopamine-comonomers, which undergoes temperature-controlled reversible switching of underwater adhesion on both hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. The channel structures facilitate water transport away from the interface, which promotes close contact between the polymer network of the hydrogel and the substrate surface.