Thermal-responsive heterogeneous organohydrogels with on-demand oil-release capabilities

The responsive secreting function of artificial materials plays an important role in wettability, self-regulation, self-lubrication, antifouling, and controlled loading and release. Drawing inspiration from the secretory tissues in plant bodies, here we present a facile strategy to prepare a stimuli-responsive organohydrogel with water-driven and thermally-driven oil-release functions, and the responsive wettability is achieved. In essence, the stimuli-responsive secretory function is inextricably linked to the infiltration and exfiltration behavior of different dispersion media between heterogeneous networks. The responsive deswelling of the dispersion medium can be induced by certain environmental factors, including changing the dispersion medium or environmental temperature, which further enables unique on-demand water-driven and thermally-driven oil-release properties. It is anticipated that such smart, self-secreting organohydrogel materials, featured with controllable liquid loading and releasing properties, have great potential in a variety of fields, such as drug delivery systems, self-lubrication and antifouling surfaces, and controlled embedding and release of bioactive molecules.