High-performance organohydrogel artificial muscle with compartmentalized anisotropic actuation under micro-domain confinement.

Current hydrogel actuators mostly suffer from weak actuation strength and low responsive speed owing to their solvent diffusion-induced volume change mechanism. Here we report a skeletal muscle-inspired organohydrogel actuator, in which solvents are confined in hydrophobic micro-domains. Organohydrogel actuator is driven by compartmentalized directional network deformation instead of volume change, avoiding the limitations originate from solvent diffusion. Organohydrogel actuator has actuation frequency of 0.11 Hz-110 times that of traditional solvent diffusion-driven hydrogel actuators (<10 -3  Hz), and can lift more than 85 times their own weight. This design achieves the combination of high responsive speed, high actuation strength and large material size, proposing a strategy to fabricate hydrogel actuators comparable with skeletal muscle performance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.