Related papers: Stimuli-responsive behavior of PNiPAm microgels un…
We study pressurised self-avoiding ring polymers in two dimensions using Monte Carlo simulations, scaling arguments and Flory-type theories, through models which generalise the model of Leibler, Singh and Fisher [Phys. Rev. Lett. Vol. 59,…
We present a pedagogical review of the swelling thermodynamics and phase transitions of polymer gels. In particular, we discuss how features of the volume phase transition of the gel's osmotic equilibrium is analogous to other transitions…
Letting free polymers diffuse from solution into a crosslinked polymer gel is often a crucial processing step in the synthesis of multiphase polymer-based gels, e.g., core-shell microgels. Here we use coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
Melting is typically viewed as a bulk first-order phase transition that proceeds once nucleation barriers are overcome. Here we demonstrate an interfacially arrested melting regime in molecularly thin crystalline films, where large liquid…
The macroscopic behaviour of foams is deeply related to rearrangements occurring at the bubble scale, which dynamics depends on the mobility of the interstitial phase. In this paper, we resort to drainage experiments to quantify this…
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…
We present results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for a non-entangled polymer melt confined between two completely smooth and repulsive walls, interacting with inner particles via the potential $U_{\rm wall}\myeq (\sigma/z)^9$,…
The thermoresponsive behavior of Pluronic F127 solutions is governed by temperature-dependent micellization and complex self-assembly of these micelles. This study investigates the effect of thermal stimuli on the kinetics of phase…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the dynamics of a water-like TIP5P model of water in hydrophilic and hydrophobic confinement. We find that in case of extreme nanocofinement such that there is only one molecular layer of water…
It is well-known that the liquid properties in a strongly confined system can be very different from their ordinary behaviors in an extended system, due to the competition between the thermal energy and the interaction energy. Here we show…
The peculiar linear temperature-dependent swelling of core-shell microgels has been conjectured to be linked to the core-shell architecture combining materials of different transition temperatures. Here the structure of pNIPMAM-core and…
We probe, using the Surface Forces Apparatus, the thermal response of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) brushes of various grafting densities, grown from plasma-activated mica by means of surface-initiated polymerization. We thus show…
Stimuli-responsive gels are the gels that vary the volume depending on environmental conditions. It has been reported that the stimuli-responsive gel with an inhomogeneous structure exhibits faster volume change than the gel without it. It…
The phase behavior of hydrocarbon fluids confined in porous media has been reported to deviate significantly from that in the bulk environment due to the existence of sub-10nm pores. Though experiments and simulations have measured the…
Self-healing of polymer films often takes place as the molecules diffuse across a damaged region, above their melting temperature. Using molecular dynamics simulations we probe the healing of polymer films and compare the results with those…
We explore the impact of three water-soluble polyelectrolytes (PEs) on the flow of concentrated suspensions of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) microgels with thermoresponsive anionic charge density. By progressively adding the PEs to a…
We study the thermodynamics of binary mixtures with the volume fraction of the minority component less than the amount required to form a flat interface and show that the surface tension dominated equilibrium phase of the mixture forms a…
We present results from extensive molecular dynamics simulations of collapse transitions of hydrophobic polymers in explicit water focused on understanding effects of lengthscale of the hydrophobic surface and of attractive interactions on…
This paper is a numerical study of the condensation of the warm neutral medium (WNM) into cold neutral medium (CNM) structures under the effect of turbulence and thermal instability. Using low resolution simulations we explored the impact…
The viscoelastic properties of thin polymeric films represent a central issue, especially for nanotechnological applications. In particular, it is highly relevant the dependence of viscoelasticity on the temperature. For polystyrene it is…