Love-hate relationship

摘要

Here's a riddle: how can a 'hydrogel' that holds more than its dry weight in water have a hydrophobic, or water-repellent, surface? Kazutoshi Haraguchi of the Kawamura Institute of Chemical Research in Sakura, Japan, and his colleagues observed this for a hydrogel made from a network of the polymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) and particles of clay.