An intelligent hydrogel shows dynamic EMI shielding of 61.1 dB, suggesting potential for smart wearables.
The development of intelligently adaptive electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials remains constrained by the inherent trade‐offs among dynamic tunability, mechanical robustness, and multifunctional integration. Inspired by stomatal regulation in plant guard cells, it has engineered an intelligent poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)/MXene–silver nanowires (AgNWs) (PMA) hydrogel whose biomimetic kinematics transcend trade‐offs. This novel design deliberately emulated biological principles of osmotic‐like actuation via PNIPAM phase transition, dynamic microchannel reconfiguration using a zinc oxide (ZnO) template, and ion‐flux‐inspired electron pathways through MXene‐AgNWs networks interfaced with a zinc ion (Zn²⁺) electrolyte. Such structural ingenuity enables the simultaneous, on‐demand tuning of electrical conductivity, hierarchical microarchitectures, and multifunctional properties. The resulting hydrogel exhibited a remarkable dynamic EMI shielding modulation of 61.1 dB, actuated solely through hydration‐governed percolation. Crucially, the divergent stimulus responses imparted an intrinsic versatility that global electrothermal shrinkage to emulate stomatal closure for EMI shielding tunability, while localized photothermal bending reproduced guard‐cell kinematics for soft actuators. Simultaneously, Zn 2+ ‐riveted cross‐links endowed the hydrogel with exceptional mechanical toughness of 360.6 kJ m −3 , while a wrinkle‐nanobridge architecture integrated high‐precision sensing, retaining a gauge factor (GF) of 2.11 across a 394% deformation window. Demonstrated in wireless communication toggling and muscle‐movement monitoring, this biomimetic strategy establishes a paradigm for intelligent hydrogels, offering transformative potential for smart wearables and human‐machine interfaces.
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Wang et al. (2025) studied this question.
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