There is a significant need of advanced materials that can be fabricated into functional devices with defined three-dimensional (3D) structures for application in tissue engineering, flexible electronics, and soft robotics. This need motivates an emerging four-dimensional (4D) printing technology, by which printed 3D structures consisting of active materials can transform their configurations over time in response to stimuli. Despite the ubiquity of active materials in performing self-morphing processes, their potential for 4D printing has not been fully explored to date. In this study, we demonstrate 4D printing of a commercial polymer, SU-8, which has not been reported to date in this field. The working principle is based on a self-morphing process of the printed SU-8 structures through spatial control of the swelling medium inside the polymer matrix by a modified process. To understand the self-morphing behavior, fundamental studies on the effect of the geometries including contours and filling patterns were carried out. A soft electronic device as an actuator was demonstrated to realize an application of this programmable polymer using the 3D printing technology. These studies provide a new paradigm for application of SU-8 in 4D printing, paving a new route to the exploration of more potential candidates by this demonstrated strategy.

Soy protein isolate, soy fiber, and cornstarch (0-40% polyether polyol) were incorporated into a flexible polyurethane foam formulation. Stress-strain curves of the control foam and foams containing 10-20% biomass material exhibit a considerable plateau stress region but not for foams extended with 30-40% biomass materials. An increase in biomass material percentage increases foam density. An increase in initial water content decreases foam density. Foams extended with 30% soy protein isolate, as well as foams extended with 30% soy fiber, have notably greater resilience values than all other extended foams. The comfort factor increases with increasing percentage of biomass material in foam formulation. Foams containing 10-40% biomass materials display significantly lower values in compression-set than the control foam.

This work proposes an original geometrical model based on randomly packed spheres using Laguerre-Voronoi tessellations to simulate geometrical and topological characteristics in the microstructure of open cell foams. The model can be used to analyze the effect of coefficient of variation on the pores distribution in real foams. The distribution of foam-cell volumes in foam structures generated in this work is dependent on the log-normal distribution of sphere volumes in corresponding randomly packed spheres. The statistical data of modeled foam structures, including distribution of the cell volume, face and edge number is very close to the characteristics of real materials. The results also show that a higher coefficient of variation in the sphere diameter would decrease the average number of faces per cell. The average number of faces varies from 13.56 to 14.43 for different coefficients of variation of sphere diameter, while the average number of faces in the Poisson-Voronoi tessellation structures is approximately 15.5. Furthermore, the porosity of foam structures, , decreases with the ratio of strut diameter to the average diameter of randomly packed spheres, , while the specific surface area of foams, , increases with .

Responsive materials with functions of forming three-dimensional (3D) origami and/or kirigami structures have a broad range of applications in bioelectronics, metamaterials, microrobotics, and microelectromechanical (MEMS) systems. To realize such functions, building blocks of actuating components usually possess localized inhomogeneity so that they respond differently to external stimuli. Previous fabrication strategies lie in localizing nonswellable or less-swellable guest components in their swellable host polymers to reduce swelling ability. Herein, inspired by ice plant seed capsules, we report an opposite strategy of implanting swellable guest medium inside nonswellable host polymers to locally enhance the swelling inhomogeneity. Specifically, we adopted a skinning effect induced surface polymerization combined with direct laser writing to control gradient of swellable cyclopentanone (CP) in both vertical and lateral directions of the nonswellable SU-8. For the first time, the laser direct writing was used as a novel strategy for patterning programmable polymer gel films. Upon stimulation of organic solvents, the dual-gradient gel films designed by origami or kirigami principles exhibit reversible 3D shape transformation. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation illustrates that CP greatly enhances diffusion rates of stimulus solvent molecules in the SU-8 matrix, which offers the driving force for the programmable response. Furthermore, this bioinspired strategy offers unique capabilities in fabricating responsive devices such as a soft gripper and a locomotive robot, paving new routes to many other responsive polymers.