Laboratory

Laboratory of Soft & Wet Matter

Sparking novel soft material designs by bioinspiration
Research Theme
Creation and application of polymer gels with excellent functions inspired by biological structures
Research Keywords

Soft & wet matter, polymer gel, double network gel, gel more durable than metal, self-healing gel, self-growing gel, bonding gel, thermal toughening gel, low friction gel, super lubricating gel, color changing gel , Sea glue gel, artificial cartilage, cell scaffold gel

Staff

Overview of Research and Education

Research Contents: Gels are biotissue-like soft, wet and deformable materials. The aim of our study is to create novel tough and functional gels, to investigate their toughening or functionalizing mechanism, and to apply our novel gels as artificial bio-substituting materials. Our research also aims to generalize the principles of novel tough gel development for other types of soft materials towards application in industrial fields.

Selected topics are listed below:
1) design and fabrication of tough gels and elastomers
2) Investigation of fracture mechanics and dynamics of soft materials
3) Synthesis of gels with low surface friction and investigation of their lubrication mechanism
4) Fabrication of tough and soft composites and investigation of the toughening mechanism
5) Mechanochemistry of gels
6) Fabrication fo soft ceramics through biomineralization
7) Biomaterials and artificial cartilage.

Laboratory of Soft & Wet Matter (pdf)

Charge

Contact

Address
〒001-0021
Frontier Research Center for Advanced Material and Life Science 2F,
Kita 21 Nishi 11, Sapporo
Phone
011-706-9011
Fax
011-706-9011
Email
gong*sci.hokudai.ac.jp (Please replace*with @ when sending e-mail.)

Representative Publications

H. Fan, J. P. Gong, “Bioinspired Underwater Adhesives,” Advanced Materials, 33(44), 2102983 (2021).

R. Long, C. Y. Hui, J. P. Gong, E. Bouchbinder, “The Fracture of Highly Deformable Soft Materials: A Tale of Two Length Scales,” Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, 12(1), 71-94 (2021).

H. Fan, J. P. Gong, “Fabrication of Bioinspired Hydrogels: Challenges and Opportunities,” Macromolecules, 53(8), 2769-2782 (2020).

C. Yu, H. Guo, K. Cui, X. Li, Y. N. Ye, T. Kurokawa, J. P. Gong, “Hydrogels as Dynamic Memory with Forgetting Ability,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(32), 18962-18968 (2020).

T. Nonoyama, Y. W. Lee, K. Ota, K. Fujioka, W. Hong, J. P. Gong, “Instant Thermal Switching from Soft Hydrogel to Rigid Plastics Inspired by Thermophile Proteins,” Advanced Materials, 32(4), 1905878 (2020).

H. Fan, J. Wang, Z. Tao, J. Huang, P. Rao, T. Kurokawa, J. P. Gong, “Adjacent Cationic-Aromatic Sequences Yield Strong Electrostatic Adhesion of Hydrogels in Seawater,” Nature Communications, 10, 5127 (2019).

H. Guo, T. Nakajima, D. Hourdet, A. Marcellan, C. Creton, W. Hong, T. Kurokawa, J. P. Gong, “Hydrophobic Hydrogels with Fruit-like Structure and Functions,” Advanced Materials, 31(25), 1900702 (2019).

T. Matsuda, R. Kawakami, R. Namba, T. Nakajima, J. P. Gong, “ Mechanoresponsive Self-growing Hydrogels Inspired by Muscle Training”, Science, 363(6426), 504-508 (2019).

P. Rao, T. L. Sun, L. Chen, R. Takahashi, G. Shinohara, H. Guo, D. R. King, T. Kurokawa, J. P. Gong, “Tough Hydrogels with Fast, Strong, and Reversible Underwater Adhesion Based on a Multi-Scale Design”, Advanced Materials, 30(32), 1801884 (2018).

T. I. Mredha, T. Nonoyama, T. Nakajima, Y. Z. Guo, T. Kurokawa, J. P. Gong, “A Facile Method to Fabricate Anisotropic Hydrogels with Perfectly Aligned Hierarchical Fibrous Structures”, Advanced Materials, 30(9), 1704937 (2018).