Related papers: Swelling of responsive-microgels: experiments vers…
By means of atomistic molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the behaviour of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PNIPAM, in water at temperatures below and above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), including the undercooled…
Polymer gels such as jellies and soft contact lenses are soft solids consisting of three-dimensional polymer networks swollen with a large amount of solvent. For approximately 80 years, the swelling of polymer gels has been described using…
The inner structure of polymeric particles critically influences their phase behavior and functionality, governing their mechanical properties and their physical and chemical interactions. For thermoresponsive microgels, i.e. colloidal…
This is an integrated experimental and theoretical study of the dynamics and rheology of self-crosslinked, slightly charged, temperature responsive soft Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) microgels over a wide range of concentration and…
We report temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven de-swelling…
We study volume transition phenomenon in hydrogels within the framework of Flory-Rehner thermodynamic modelling; we show that starting from different models for the Flory parameter different conclusions can be achieved, in terms of…
The quality of solvents of polymers is often described in terms of the Flory chi parameter typically assumed to depend only on the temperature, T. In certain polymer-solvent systems fitting the experimental data enforces the replacement of…
A central quantity in the design of functional hydrogels used as nanocarrier systems, for instance for drug delivery or adaptive nanocatalysis, is the partition ratio, which quantifies the uptake of a molecular substance by the polymer…
Colloidal microgel particles such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) shrink reversibly in an aqueous medium due to the expulsion of water at a volume phase transition temperature, VPTT $\sim$33$^\circ$C. Romeo et al. [Adv. Mater. 2010,…
Stimuli-responsive lyogels are known for their ability to undergo significant macroscopic changes when exposed to external stimuli. While thermo-responsive gels, such as poly N isopropylacrylamide (pNIPAM), have been extensively studied…
Thermoresponsive polymer architectures have become integral building blocks of 'smart' functional materials in modern applications. For a large range of developments, e.g., for drug delivery or nanocatalytic carrier systems, the selective…
The phase behaviour of soft colloids has attracted great attention due to the large variety of new phenomenologies emerging from their ability to pack at very high volume fractions. Here we report rheological measurements on interpenetrated…
As a novel stimulus, we used high-frequency ultrasonic waves to provide the required energy for breaking hydrogen bonds between Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and water molecules while the solution temperature maintains below the…
For a wide range of modern soft functional materials the selective transport of sub-nanometer-sized molecules (`penetrants') through a stimuli-responsive polymeric membrane is key to the desired function. In this study, we investigate the…
Hydrogel consists of a crosslinked polymer matrix imbibed with a solvent such as water at volume fractions that can exceed 90\%. They are important in many scientific and engineering applications due to their tunable physiochemical…
We study a multi-body finite element model of a packing of hydrogel particles using the Flory-Rehner constitutive law to model the deformation of the swollen polymer network. We show that while the dependence of the pressure, $\Pi$, on the…
Physically assembled gels have promising applications in many fields because of their tunable mechanical properties. Here, we report the mechanical properties as a function of polymer volume fraction ($\phi$) for a physical gel system…
Hydrophilic and LCST polymer chains, poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) and poly(Nisopropylacrylamide)(PNIPA), were combined in semi-interpenetrated architectures toinvestigate their responsive properties in swollen isochoric conditions…
The effects of elasticity on filament thinning and breakup are investigated in microchannel cross flow. When a viscous solution is stretched by an external immiscible fluid, a low 100 ppm polymer concentration strongly affects the breakup…
Stimuli-responsive lyogels are considered to be smart materials due to their capability of undergoing significant macroscopic changes in response to external triggers. Due to their versatile and unique properties, smart lyogels exhibit…