Related papers: Under pressure: Hydrogel swelling in a granular me…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles constituted by cross-linked polymer networks with a high potential for applications. In particular, after adsorption at a fluid interface, interfacial tension provides two-dimensional (2D) confinement…
Cells and other soft particles are often forced to flow in confined geometries in both laboratory and natural environments, where the elastic deformation induces an additional drag and pressure drop across the particle. In contrast with…
Osmotic pressure is the driving force for the swelling of hydrogels. The hydrogel osmotic pressure can be decomposed into two parts: the mixing part due to polymer-solvent interaction and the elastic part due to polymer chain stretching.…
From microactuators to biological tissues, non-porous materials with the ability to strongly expand when in contact with a solvent are ubiquitous. Consequently, the swelling of polymer systems such as hydrogel has received recently much…
From biological tissues to layers of paint, macroscopic non-porous materials with the capacity to swell when brought in contact with an appropriate solvent are ubiquitous. Here, we study experimentally and theoretically one of the…
Control of the swelling, chemical functionalization, and adhesivity of hydrogels are finding new applications in a wide range of material systems. We investigate experimentally the effect of adsorbed particles on hydrogels on the depinning…
We investigate the force of flowing granular material on an obstacle. A sphere suspended in a discharging silo experiences both the weight of the overlaying layers and drag of the surrounding moving grains. In experiments with frictional…
Tough adhesive hydrogels find broad applications in engineering and medicine. Such hydrogels feature high resistance against both cohesion and adhesion failure. The superior fracture properties may, however, deteriorate when the hydrogels…
An adhesively stressed thin film of a soft hydrogel confined between two rigid flat substrates auto-roughens with its dominant wavelength exhibiting pronounced dependence on the film thickness (H). A linear stability analysis confirmed that…
Most thermodynamic modeling of hydrogels focused on predicting their final volumes in equilibrium with water, built on Flory's theories for the entropy of mixing and rubber elasticity, and Donnan's equilibrium conditions if polyelectrolyte…
The presence of liquid water in frozen media impacts the strength of soils, the growth of frost heave, plant life and microbial activities, or the durability of infrastructures in cold regions. If the effect of confinement on freezing is…
Microgels are soft colloids that, in virtue of their polymeric nature, can react to external stimuli such as temperature or pH by changing their size. The resulting swelling/deswelling transition can be exploited in fundamental research as…
Wet granular aggregates are common precursors of construction materials, food, and health care products. The physical mechanisms involved in the mixing of dry grains with a wet substrate are not well understood and difficult to control.…
We study rain water infiltration and drainage in a dry model sandy soil with superabsorbent hydrogel particle additives by measuring the mass of retained water for non-ponding rainfall using a self-built 3D laboratory set-up. In the pure…
We use dedicated microfluidic devices to expose soft hydrogel particles to a rapid change in the externally applied osmotic pressure and observe a non-monotonic response: After an initial rapid compression the particle slowly reswells to…
Graphene nanochannels are relevant for their possible applications, as in water purification, and for the challenge of understanding how they change the properties of confined liquids. Here, we use all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to…
Liquids under confinement differ in behavior from their bulk counterparts and can acquire properties that are specific to the confined phase and linked to the nature and structure of the host matrix. While confined liquid water is not a new…
Moisture-capturing hydrogels have emerged as attractive sorbent materials capable of converting ambient humidity into liquid water. Recent works have demonstrated exceptional water capture capabilities of hydrogels, while simultaneously,…
Hydrogels are attractive and versatile gel-based structures consisting of three-dimensional networks of hydrophilic polymers with unique properties that can retain a large amount of water and be tailor-designed according to specific…
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…