--- title: MIT engineers whip up a more breathable hydrogel | daily.dev description: MIT engineers have developed a breathable hydrogel that maintains its water-heavy composition while allowing air to pass through via a network of tiny tunnels.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/mit-engineers-whip-up-a-more-breathable-hydrogel-ngj3nl9se twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: MIT engineers whip up a more breathable hydrogel | daily.dev og:description: MIT engineers have developed a breathable hydrogel that maintains its water-heavy composition while allowing air to pass through via a network of tiny tunnels.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/mit-engineers-whip-up-a-more-breathable-hydrogel-ngj3nl9se og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/NGj3nl9sE.png og:image:alt: MIT engineers whip up a more breathable hydrogel og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # MIT engineers whip up a more breathable hydrogel **[MIT News](https://daily.dev/sources/mit)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary MIT engineers have developed a breathable hydrogel that maintains its water-heavy composition while allowing air to pass through via a network of tiny tunnels. The key innovation uses viscoelastic phase separation: mixing a small amount of silica aerogel particles into conventional hydrogel causes water molecules to cluster together, forcing the silica particles into thin, interconnected air-permeable channels. The resulting material is as soft and stretchy as conventional hydrogels but significantly more breathable. In trials, volunteers wore wireless ECG heart monitors attached with the new hydrogel during 10 days of exercise, showing no skin irritation and maintaining clear signal quality. The gel also survived 10,000 stretch-compression cycles with less than 5% drop in oxygen permeability. Potential applications include breathable bandages, cosmetic face masks, contact lenses, and long-term health monitors. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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