Bio-Inspired Polymeric Gels and Their Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Bio-inspired polymeric gels have seen rapid development in the last ten years, involving many cutting-edge fields. Through the design of bio-mimetic gel structures with anisotropic, hierarchical layered, directional porous, double-network and self-assembled structures, bio-inspired polymeric gels can provide various specific functions for intelligent complex/powerful self-actuations, high-strength/self-healing artificial cartilages, soft wearable systems, high-efficient adsorption/ separation, and so on. However, compared with biological tissues/structures through hundred million years of natural evolution, existing artificial polymeric gels only have decades of development and can only mimic some simple structures/functions of organisms. Thus, today, it remains a huge challenge for us to explore new polymeric gels with novel bio-inspired structures, which will significantly enhance their functions and extend their applications in the future.

Therefore, this Special Issue on “Bio-Inspired Polymeric Gels and Their Applications” focuses on research on bio-mimetic polymeric gels (hydrogels, aerogels, organic gels, ionic liquid gels and their composites) and their applications. We are pleased to invite you to contribute your recent work to this Special Issue. Your work can be recent research articles, reviews, or prospects about bioinspired polymeric gels, including but not limited to bio-mimetic structures, stimuli-responsive shape/color changes, self-healing, anti-biofouling, high-strength functions, adsorption, wearable sensing, and bio-medicine applications.

Dr. Chunxin Ma
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.