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Thermo-responsive hydrogels are a promising material for creating controllable actuators for use in micro-scale devices, since they expand and contract significantly (absorbing or expelling fluid) in response to relatively small temperature…
Encapsulation of chemicals using polymer membranes enables to control their transport and delivery for applications such as agrochemistry or detergency. To rationalize the design of polymer capsules, it is necessary to understand how the…
Ferrogels, i.e., hydrogels loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, have the ability to deform in external magnetic fields. The precise shape of deformation and the alignment of the gel in the field, however, depend on the interplay of several…
This paper examines the response of electrolyte-saturated polymer gels, embedded with charged spherical inclusions, to a weak gradient of electrolyte concentration. These composites present a model system to study microscale electrokinetic…
Solutions of microgels have been widely used as model systems to gain insight into atomic condensed matter and complex fluids. We explore the thermodynamic phase behavior of hollow microgels, which are distinguished from conventional…
The combination of soft responsive particles, such as microgels, with nanoparticles (NPs) yields highly versatile complexes of great potential for applications, from ad-hoc plasmonic sensors to controlled protocols for loading and release.…
Hollow microgels are elastic polymer shells easily realizable in experiments. Recent works have shown the emergence of buckling events in dilute hollow microgels under the effect of an added osmotic pressure. Here, we perform large-scale…
Deformable colloids and macromolecules adsorb at interfaces, as they decrease the interfacial energy between the two media. The deformability, or softness, of these particles plays a pivotal role in the properties of the interface. In this…
The competition of depletion attractions and longer-ranged repulsions between colloidal particles in colloid-polymer mixtures leads to the formation of heterogeneous gel-like structures. For instance, gel networks, i.e., states where the…
A strategy is developed for generating equilibrated high molecular-weight polymer melts described with microscopic detail by sequentially backmapping coarse-grained (CG) configurations. The microscopic test model is generic but retains…
Hypothesis: The peculiar swelling behaviour of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)-based responsive microgels provides the possibility to tune both softness and volume fraction with temperature, making these systems of great interest for…
Microfluidic channels are integral to biomedical technology and process engineering, offering versatility in handling fluids with complex properties, often a combination of viscous and elastic attributes. Despite significant advancements in…
The structural and thermodynamic properties of mixtures of colloidal spheres and non-adsorbing polymer chains are studied within a novel general two-component macromolecular liquid state approach applicable for all size asymmetry ratios.…
Dynamic processes in dispersions of charged spherical particles are of importance both in fundamental science, and in technical and bio-medical applications. There exists a large variety of charged-particles systems, ranging from…
The macroscopic mechanical properties of colloidal particle gels strongly depend on the local arrangement of the powder particles. Experiments have shown that more heterogeneous microstructures exhibit up to one order of magnitude higher…
The elastic properties of granular hydrogels are commonly characterised under wet conditions, yet the influence of capillary interactions remains unclear. In practical applications, hydrogels operate in aqueous environments containing…
We developed a new physical model to predict macroscopic properties of inorganic molten systems using a realistic description of inter-atomic interactions. Unlike the conventional approach, which tends to overestimate viscosity by several…
Finding new ways to tune the behavior of thermoresponsive microgels in bulk and confined at 2D liquid interfaces is key to achieve a deeper understanding and control of these smart materials. We studied the interaction of positively charged…
Interpenetrated Polymer Network (IPN) microgels of PNIPAM and PAAc have been investigated and the experimental data have been compared with theoretical models from the Flory-Rehner theory. We confirm that the swelling behavior of PNIPAM…
Being able to precisely characterize the mechanical properties of soft microparticles is essential for numerous situations from the understanding of the flow of biological fluids to the development of soft micro-robots. Here we present a…