Self-oscillating gels beating like a heart muscle

So far stimuli-responsive polymer gels and their application to smart materials have been widely studied. On the other hand, as a novel biomimetic gel, we developed gels with an autonomous self-oscillating function like a heart muscle, which was firstly reported in 1996. We designed the self-oscillating polymers and gels by utilizing the oscillating reaction, called the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. The self-oscillating polymer is composed of a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) network in which the catalyst for the BZ reaction is covalently immobilized. In the presence of the reactants, the polymer gel undergoes spontaneous cyclic swelling–deswelling changes without any on–off switching of external stimuli. Potential applications of the self-oscillating polymers and gels include several kinds of functional material systems, such as bio-mimetic actuators and mass transport surface. In this review, recent progress on the polymer gels is introduced.