Autonomous self-oscillating chemomechanical gels: recent achievements and development prospects

I. L. Mallphanov^a, E. G. Chupakhin^a, O. V. Lagunova^a, A. I. Lavrova<sup>ab

a</sup> Centre for Applied Nonlinear Dynamics, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russian Federation
^b Saint-Petersburg Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation

Abstract: The relevance of the subject of the review is due to increasing interest of scientists and engineers in the search for and study of autonomously functioning chemomechanical materials and the application of these materials for the development of biomimetic devices. This research area lacks full-scale reviews analyzing all currently available types of autonomous self-oscillating chemomechanical gels, promising materials for the design of artificial muscles for soft robots and chemomechanical devices. This review fills this gap by extensively covering the relevant information on this subject matter and giving comparative analysis of the objects, including the drawbacks of the existing gels driven by the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction (BZ gels) and prospects for the development of new gels with specified properties. A more comprehensive classification of the most promising BZ gels developed to date is given.
The bibliography includes 123 references.

Keywords: autonomous self-oscillating chemomechanical gels, Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, chemical oscillators, chemomechanical devices.

Received: 04.07.2025

DOI: 10.59761/RCR5191

 English version: Russian Chemical Reviews, 2025, 94:11, 1–29

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