Recent advances of organogels: from fabrications and functions to applications

As a kind of important semi-solid material, the gel has gained increasing attention due to the high demand for fundamental research and practical applications. Organogels are gels formulated with organic liquid phases, which are distinguished from hydrogels infiltrated with water/aqueous solutions in a three-dimensional network. Owing to their inherent semi-solid property, organogels manifest various unique characteristics, such as surface lubricity, and anti-drying capacity, arousing particular interests in diverse practical applications. In this review, the current advances of organogels are focused to provide recent progress of organogels in global perspective. First, fundamental understandings of organogels, ranging from the basic composition, gelation mechanism, fabrication strategy, and unique property, are fully summarized. Then, an emphasis is placed on the most recent progress in emerging applications of organogels, including anti-icing, anti-fouling, droplet manipulation, drug delivery, food processing, etc. Finally, the remaining challenges and future prospects of organogel are addressed to enlighten novel fabrication approaches and applications in the future.