Abstract
The inherent low polarity and weak intermolecular interactions of nonpolar media impose a fundamental thermodynamic constraint on gelation. Despite recent breakthroughs in designing highly stretchable and tough hydrogels, developing organogels that absorb nonpolar organic liquids with comparable mechanical performance has remained elusive. We report an ultra-stretchable and crack-resistant nonpolar organogel engineered through an inorganic nanowire-polymer hybrid network, overcoming the elasticity-strength trade-off. This hybrid network can absorb and gelate diverse nonpolar organic liquids at mass absorption ratios reaching over 35:1. The resultant organogels exhibit outstanding mechanical properties, including breaking elongation up to 1600% and true fracture strength over 1.5 MPa. In addition, through dynamic strain-induced nanowire alignment during tensile deformation, the organogels possess outstanding crack and fatigue resistance (fracture energy up to 1.7 kJ m−2 and fatigue threshold up to 95.3 J m−2). These advances make our organogels ideal for nonpolar organic liquid solidification and spilled petrol recovery applications.
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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this paper and the Supplementary Information. Data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22401045 of J.P., 22471079 of K.Y., 22301037 of Z.H., 22241502, 22588301 and 92461314 of X.W.), the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS202307) of K.Y., the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (2024D03J0003) of K.Y., and the Pearl River Talents Scheme (2016ZT06C322) of K.Y. We acknowledge Senior Experimental Engineer Dr. Jie Cui from the Analytical and Testing Center of South China University of Technology for the high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) imaging via transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
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K.Y. and X.W. conceived the idea and supervised the research. Z.H. and J.P. carried out the experiments. Z.H., J.P., W.Z., K.Y., and X.W. analyzed the data, wrote the draft and revised the manuscript.
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Huang, Z., Peng, J., Zhang, W. et al. Ultra-stretchable and crack-resistant nonpolar organogels. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68775-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68775-9
