Related papers: Numerical modelling of non-ionic microgels: an ove…
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under…
Microgels, cross-linked polymers with submicrometer size, are ideal soft model systems. While spherical microgels have been studied extensively, anisotropic microgels have been hardly investigated. In this study, we compare the interfacial…
Membrane ultrafiltration (UF) is a pressure driven process allowing for the separation and enrichment of protein solutions and dispersions of nanosized microgel particles. The permeate flux and the near-membrane concentration-polarization…
Hydrogels are increasingly recognized as a versatile platform for applications spanning from tissue engineering to soft robotics or flexible electronics. Recent efforts have focused on enhancing and tailoring their mechanical performance to…
Hydrogels are soft materials engineered to suit a multitude of applications that exploit their tunable mechanochemical properties. Dynamic hydrogels employing noncovalent, physically crosslinked networks dominated by either enthalpic or…
Magnetic gels with embedded micro/nano-sized magnetic particles in crosslinked polymer networks can be actuated by external magnetic fields, with changes in their internal microscopic structures and macroscopic mechanical properties. We…
Polymer materials have the characteristic feature that they are multiscale systems by definition. Already the description of a single molecules involves a multitude of different scales, and cooperative processes in polymer assemblies are…
We perform extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations of an ensemble of realistic microgel particles in swollen conditions in a wide range of packing fractions $\zeta$. We compare neutral and charged microgels, where we consider charges…
If many micelles adsorb onto the same polymer molecule then they are said to form a necklace. A minimal model of such a necklace is proposed and shown to be almost equivalent to a 1-dimensional fluid with nearest-neighbour interactions. The…
Ferrogels and magnetic elastomers differentiate themselves from other materials by their unique capability of reversibly changing shape and mechanical properties under the influence of an external magnetic field. A crucial issue in the…
We develop a double mean-field theory for charged macrogels immersed in electrolyte solutions in the spirit of the cell model approach. We first demonstrate that the equilibrium sampling of a single explicit coarse-grained charged polymer…
Micron-sized hard core-soft shell hybrid microgels are promising model systems for studies of soft matter as they enable in-situ optical investigations and their structures/morphologies can be engineered with a great variety. Yet, protocols…
The present work emphasizes the relevance of low-field NMR relaxometry to investigate colloid-polymer hydrogels by probing water dynamics across a wide range of formulations between $\rm 10^{\circ}C$ and $\rm 80^{\circ}C$. By examining the…
Ultrasound-induced degradation of soft polymeric colloids, like microgels, as well as a controlled drug release enabled by mechanoresponsive bonds, has recently attracted considerable attention. However, most examples in the literature…
Biological hydrogels have been increasingly sought after as e.g. wound dressings or scaffolds for regenerative medicine, due to their inherent biofunctionality in biological environments. Especially in moist wound healing, the ideal…
Ice-nucleating proteins (INPs) are a unique class of biological macromolecules that catalyze the freezing of supercooled water far more efficiently than homogeneous nucleation. Their remarkable efficiency has motivated applications across…
Polymer materials with low water uptake exhibit a highly heterogeneous interior, characterized by water clusters in the form of nanodroplets and nanochannels. Here, based on our recent insights from computer simulations, we argue that water…
Controlled crystallization, melting and vitrification are important fundamental processes in nature and technology. However, the microscopic details of these fundamental phenomena still lack understanding, in particular how the cooling rate…
Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a phase-separating colloid-polymer mixture are performed and compared to recent experiments. The approach is based on effective interaction potentials in which the central monomers of self-avoiding…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions are a well-tested model system which has a glass transition. Colloids are suspensions of small solid particles in a liquid, and exhibit glassy behavior when the particle concentration is high; the…