Many biological organisms with exceptional freezing tolerance can resist the damages to cells from extra-/intracellular ice crystals and thus maintain their mechanical stability at subzero temperatures. Inspired by the freezing tolerance mechanisms found in nature, here we report a strategy of combining hydrophilic/oleophilic heteronetworks to produce self-adaptive, freeze-tolerant and mechanically stable organohydrogels. The organohydrogels can simultaneously use water and oil as a dispersion medium, and quickly switch between hydrogel- and organogel-like behaviours in response to the nature of the surrounding phase. Accordingly, their surfaces display unusual adaptive dual superlyophobic in oil/water system (that is, they are superhydrophobic under oil and superoleophobic under water). Moreover, the organogel component can inhibit the ice crystallization of the hydrogel component, thus enhancing the mechanical stability of organohydrogel over a wide temperature range (−78 to 80 °C). The organohydrogels may have promising applications in complex and harsh environments.

Currently, electronics and iontronics in abiotic-biotic systems can only use electrons and single-species ions as unitary signal carriers. Thus, a mechanism of gating transmission for multiple biosignals in such devices is needed to match and modulate complex aqueous-phase biological systems. Here we report the use of cascade-heterogated biphasic gel iontronics to achieve diverse electronic-to-multi-ionic signal transmission. The cascade-heterogated property determined the transfer free energy barriers experienced by ions and ionic hydration-dehydration states under an electric potential field, fundamentally enhancing the distinction of cross-interface transmission between different ions by several orders of magnitude. Such heterogated or chemical-heterogated iontronics with programmable features can be coupled with multi-ion cross-interface mobilities for hierarchical and selective cross-stage signal transmission. We expect that such iontronics would be ideal candidates for a variety of biotechnology applications.