Dr. in het Panhuis’s lab works on self-healing hydrogels and other soft materials for applications to bionics technologies, promoting mechanical matching at soft biological to hard electronic device interfaces to improve biological integration. This creates the benefit of soft, deformable materials and components that can conform to complex and changing environments such as biological interfaces and can regain shape and functionality after large deformations. There is often a tradeoff between mechanical robustness and ability to self heal, but developments are trending towards optimization of both aspects.
In D. L. Taylor, M. In Het Panhuis, Self-Healing Hydrogels, Adv Mater. 2016, 28(41), 9060-9093 they have reviewed methods for testing recovery and strength for hydrogels that are able to self heal on time scales approaching seconds. There are many applications to 3D printing, soft robotics, tissue engineering, and assistive health technologies that are critical to bionic interfaces and biohybrid systems. Examples of applications would include minimally invasive surgery soft robots where hydrogels can serve as soft robotic actuators and soft material for tissue engineering scaffold materials that can assist in repairing tissue and deliver therapeutics, as well as implants and limb replacements.
