New Progress in Thermally Induced Super-Stiffening Hydrogels from ECUST Published in Advanced Materials

A research team led by Professor Dahui Qu at the Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, ECUST, proposed a disulfide-mediated confined assembly strategy that significantly enhanced hydrogel performance under heating conditions. The findings were published in Advanced Materials (Adv. Mater. 2026, DOI: 10.1002/adma.202523672).

In this work, lipoic acid was introduced into a poly (acrylic acid) network to construct a novel thermal-hyperhardening hydrogel system. Unlike the conventional hydrophobic-driven phase separation hardening mechanism, this system underwent a thermally induced hyperhardening transition from a soft hydrogel to a rigid glassy material, with the modulus increased from approximately 800 Pa to 22 MPa (over 27,000-fold enhancement). 

The remarkable mechanical reinforcement was attributed to an entropy-driven phase evolution, including entropy-driven hydrophobic aggregation of 1,2-dithiolane, Ca(II)–carboxylate coordination reconstruction, and disulfide bond-mediated constrained ring-opening polymerization.

Furthermore, the hydrogel was integrated with PNIPAM to construct a bilayer hydrogel, enabling thermal-responsive bending deformation and simple gripping and releasing operations, thereby demonstrating its potential applications in soft robotics and intelligent devices. Through a straightforward system design, this study achieved substantial enhancement in hydrogel performance and provided a new strategy for the development of high-performance intelligent soft materials.

Professor Dahui Qu and PhD Candidate Chenyu Shi are co-corresponding authors, and Shen Junyu, a master’s student, is the first author. The research was conducted under the guidance of Academician Tian He. It was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, the Innovation Program of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Discipline Talent Introduction Program, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Project.