Related papers: Under pressure: Hydrogel swelling in a granular me…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
The geological storage of hydrogen (H_2) requires reliable long-term caprock sealing, yet the nanoscale interactions between H_2 and clay minerals remain critically underexplored despite their importance for storage security. This lack of…
We measure the flow of water through mixed packings of glass spheres and soft swellable hydrogel grains, at constant sample volume. Permeability values are obtained at constant sample volume and at porosities smaller than random close…
Adsorption in nanoporous materials is one strategy that can be used to store hydrogen at conditions of temperature and pressure that are economically viable. Adsorption capacity of nanoporous materials depends on surface area which can be…
Strong shear thickening and jamming in dense suspensions are driven by friction as particles are sheared into contact. Control over these frictional interactions can be achieved via particle shape and roughness, and also via the particles'…
Experimental results on the formation of molecular hydrogen on amorphous silicate surfaces are presented for the first time and analyzed using a rate equation model. The energy barriers for the relevant diffusion and desorption processes…
Physical understanding of the links between soil swelling, texture, structure, cracking, and sample size is of great interest for the physical understanding of many processes in the soil-air-water system and for applications in civil,…
When a drop containing colloidal particles evaporates on a surface, a circular stain made of these particles is often observed due to an internal flow toward the contact line. To hinder this effect, several approaches have been proposed…
A cylindrical hydrogel tube, completely submerged in water, hydrates by swelling and filling its internal cavity. When it comes back into contact with air, it dehydrates: the tube thus expels the solvent through the walls, shrinking. This…
Hydrogen embrittlement in metals (HE) is a serious challenge for the use of high strength materials in engineering practice and a major barrier to the use of hydrogen for global decarbonization. Here we describe the factors and variables…
Soft particles display highly versatile properties with respect to hard colloids, even more so at fluid-fluid interfaces. In particular, microgels, consisting of a cross-linked polymer network, are able to deform and flatten upon adsorption…
A particle-water discrete element based approach to describe water movement in partially saturated granular media is presented and tested. Water potential is governed by both capillary bridges, dominant at low saturations, and the pressure…
Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues \emph{in vitro} to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a…
This article gives an overview of recent theoretical and experimental findings concerning the hydrodynamic interaction between liquid-embedded particles in various confined geometries. A simple unifying description emerges, which accounts…
We investigate pattern transformations of periodic hydrogel systems that are triggered by swelling-induced structural instabilities. The types of microstructures considered in the present work include single-phase and two-phase voided…
In recent years, ionic microgels have garnered much attention due to their unique properties, especially their stimulus-sensitive swelling behavior. The tunable response of these soft, permeable, compressible, charged colloidal particles is…
We investigate the swelling dynamics driven by solvent absorption in a hydrogel sphere immersed in a solvent bath, through an accurate computational model and numerical study. We extensively describe the transient process from dry to wet…
We study the periodic buckling patterns that emerge when elastic shells are subjected to geometric confinement. Residual swelling provides access to range of shapes (saddles, rolled sheets, cylinders, and spherical sections) which vary in…
Molecular dynamics results on water confined in a silica pore in the low hydration regime are presented. Strong layering effects are found due to the hydrophilic character of the substrate. The local properties of water are studied as…
We report, for the first time, some experimental observations regarding a new type of long range interaction between rigid particles that prevails when they are suspended in an soft elastic gel. A denser particle submerges itself to a…