Responsive liquid metal materials towards unstructured environment

Real-world environments are dynamic, variable, and often unpredictable, where temperature, pressure, and chemical composition fluctuate beyond designed limits. Such complexity challenges materials to maintain reliable behavior under coupled physical and chemical fields. Room-temperature liquid metals (RTLMs) show excellent adaptability originating from metallic and fluid. The coexistence of high conductivity, deformability, and reconfigurable interfaces enables stable performance across unstable or fluctuating environments. This review focuses on RTLM-based material systems under unstructured conditions, analyzing how their physicochemical characteristics, including interfacial dynamics, oxidation tolerance, and recoverable morphology, govern environmental adaptability, mechanical resilience, self-healing, and long-term stability. Five representative unstructured scenarios are discussed, including in vivo, underwater, open-air, space, and high-radiation environments, illustrating how RTLMs achieve multifunctions including sensing, actuation, thermal regulation, and shielding under non-ideal conditions. The outlook highlights remaining challenges in interfacial control, material standardization, and scalable integration. RTLMs provide a material foundation for robust and adaptive systems capable of sustained operation in complex real-world environments.