Generally, if you pick up any material around the house and show it to a stranger, they’d be able to tell you whether it’s a solid or a liquid. These properties of matter that we are taught as children govern the interactions between objects, and provide us consistent expectations for the outcomes of physical reactions. In some situations, however, that is a problem. In medicine, implants often leave scarred tissue as a result of imperfect healing, yet the rigid materials they are made from are the only ones strong enough to perform the task they were given.

Enter hydrogels, not quite solid, not quite liquid, but capable of mimicking living tissue and possibly revolutionizing the process of healing. As their structure is similar to human flesh, they can stay in a body for years on end. As they can keep themselves together, but can be extremely moist, they can be used in wound dressing to accelerate recovery. When I was in elementary school, I had an unfortunate encounter with a glass door that left me permanently scarred on my left forearm and right hand fingers. It took months to heal, but with hydrogels, it could take mere weeks. It is just recently that hydrogels are beginning to be used and I am excited to see what will be able to do for us.

Hydrogels can also be used in agriculture. Farmers are usually only able to determine whether something is wrong with their crops through visual means, as it’s kind of difficult to attach technology to small plants without damaging them. As you may expect, however, new solutions have been made possible with the advent of hydrogels. Sensors made from the material can enter plant tissue without triggering a response from the immune system, allowing for immediate detection and monitoring of plant health. In arid regions, hydrogels, with salts applied, have been shown to be able to harvest water vapor directly from the air. At night, it absorbs water, then releases it during the day, no extra power required. Once scaled up, this could provide a simple solution to the issue of clean drinking water for impoverished areas.

Although hydrogels aren’t specifically an environmental innovation, it runs quite parallel. The endless properties brought on by its introduction have excited me to no end, and I eagerly await the future where these materials are commonplace.¹

1. Source: MIT
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKcJOHkG19w ↩︎