Non-covalent interactions in action: Advancing eutectogels for enhanced stability and performance

Gels stand out as favored soft matter materials across diverse industries, spanning from food processing to biomedicine. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) emerge as environmentally friendly liquids, blending low-melting-point combinations with customizable chemical properties, thereby presenting safer alternatives to hazardous organic reagents. Crafted using DESs as solvents, eutectogels showcase superior mechanical qualities, an expanded electrochemical operating range, and a vast array of potential applications. Despite the remarkable enhancement of functional attributes facilitated by numerous non-covalent interactions through intermolecular forces and increased physical cross-linking within the three-dimensional networks of eutectogels, a critical gap persists in understanding the microscopic mechanisms that underlie non-covalent interaction-property correlations within them. To bridge this gap, this review categorizes and summarizes recent scientific investigations that explore non-covalent interactions within eutectogels, with the aim of highlighting the collaborative design and control of these interactions. We aspire for this review to ignite innovative design concepts and facilitate the development of revolutionary high-performance eutectogel materials.