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Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks with high water content, widely employed in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Injectable, depot-forming hydrogels enable sustained…
Hydrogels are widespread soft materials, which can serve a wide range of applications. The control over the viscoelastic properties of the gel is of paramount importance. Ongoing environmental issues have raised the consumer's concern…
The design of hydrogels that combine mechanical robustness with dynamic reconfigurability remains a fundamental challenge, as increasing crosslink dissociation rates compromise network integrity. This limitation is addressed through the…
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…
Biological systems achieve adaptive mechanical responses through reaction-diffusion processes that couple chemical wave propagation to structural transitions. Although synthetic hydrogels with enzymatic reactions offer a platform for…
Adding dynamic bonds in polymer networks enables reprocessing and recycling; however the full impact of reversible bonds on dynamic network mechanics remains unclear. We build model dynamic networks and observe substantial deviations from…
Vitrimers are a relatively new class of polymeric materials containing associative covalent dynamic bonds that make them recyclable by design. However, the fundamental mechanisms controlling their viscoelastic properties remain poorly…
Biomimetic hydrogels based on natural polymers are a promising class of biomaterial, mimicking the natural extra-cellular matrix of biological tissues and providing cues for cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. With a view to…
Self-healing polymers crosslinked by solely reversible bonds are intrinsically weaker than common covalently crosslinked networks. Introducing covalent crosslinks into a reversible network would improve mechanical strength. It is…
Metamaterials provide exceptional control over physical phenomena, enabling many disruptive technologies. However, researches in hydrodynamic meta-devices have mainly used intrusive methods to manipulate material structures, limited by…
Colloidal magnetic particles embedded in an elastic polymer matrix constitute a smart material called ferrogel. It responds to an applied external magnetic field by changes in elastic properties, which can be exploited for various…
Controlling the viscoelastic properties of hydrogels is a challenge for many applications. Low molecular weight gelators (LMWG) like bile salts and glycolipids, and biopolymers like chitosan and alginate, are good candidates for developing…
Hydrogel adhesion that can be easily modulated in magnitude, space, and time is desirable in many emerging applications ranging from tissue engineering, and soft robotics, to wearable devices. In synthetic materials, these complex adhesion…
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…
Soft solids with tunable mechanical response are at the core of new material technologies, but a crucial limit for applications is their progressive aging over time, which dramatically affects their functionalities. The generally accepted…
Ferrogels consist of magnetic colloidal particles embedded in an elastic polymer matrix. As a consequence, their structural and rheological properties are governed by a competition between magnetic particle-particle interactions and…
Inspired by the cellular design of plant tissue, we present a new approach to make versatile, tough, highly water-swelling composites. We embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices. The…
Chemical crosslinking of collagen is a general strategy to reproduce macroscale tissue properties in physiological environment. However, simultaneous control of protein conformation, material properties and biofunctionality is highly…
At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
As the interface between human and machine becomes blurred, hydrogel incorporated electronics and devices have emerged to be a new class of flexible/stretchable electronic and ionic devices due to their extraordinary properties, such as…