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.