Bio-inspired wet/lubricious/adhesive soft matter and performance control in-between

Nature evolves soft but structural architectures with typical wet/lubricous/adhesive behavior, as well as tunable interface functionalities, such as superhydrophilicity, superhydrophobic, superlubricity, high adhesion, etc. In order to simulate this, new chemistry modification methods, novel polymers materials and advanced manufacture techniques are developed for engineering diverse bioinspired wet/lubricous/adhesive soft matter systems. This review focuses on two typical interface functionalities of soft architectures in nature: wet lubrication and wet adhesion. Correspondingly, systematic summaries of recent progress for constructing bioinspired wet/lubricious/adhesive soft matter systems are proposed, including the surface grafting methods to construct hydrophilic wet lubrication surfaces, the bionic design of mechanically robust and structured soft matter lubrication materials, the novel preparation of high-performance biomimetic wet adhesion materials, and the advanced manufacture of 3D soft matter-based wet/lubricious devices. Subsequently, the current strategies relying on diverse regulation factors including surface hydration/roughness, surface intrinsic states, bulk mechanics, as well as multi-factors synergy, are introduced and discussed for achieving dynamic friction or adhesion control of bioinspired soft matter lubrication/adhesion systems. Finally, the existing problems, challenges and future development directions of bioinspired wet/lubricious/adhesive soft matter materials and devices are discussed. This review provides clear guidance for designing bioinspired soft matter-based lubrication, adhesion, or adhesion-lubrication switchable systems, and would act as a necessary research handbook in the field of surface/interface wettability engineering, bioengineering, medical devices, soft robotics, etc.